When looking back how drugs were discovered in the mid to late nineties, it becomes apparent that the role of chemists in this endeavor has dramatically changed. Where the role of the chemist mainly was to synthesize small organic molecules, aiming to optimize biological activity, it is clear that his role today goes largely beyond optimizing for primary biological activity.

Today, it is expected from the chemists to be multidisciplinary experts in the fields of biology, ADME-T, computer assisted drug design, the use of various IT systems allowing to extract and visualize the data, patent space and law…, in order to be able to orchestrate the optimization of hit molecules to NMEs in a multi-factorial fashion.

In addition, he is also expected to provide his organic chemistry skills to design tool compounds, imaging agents, PET ligands, solutions for diagnostic tools, etc …, enabling the biologists in the unravelling and understanding of the extremely complex biological systems.

Finally, he is supposed to be able to propose alternative drug delivery technologies and/or prodrugs for improved systemic exposures.

In summary, from being an expert in pure medicinal chemistry, the chemist’s role has now evolved to being an expert in chemical biology.

Since a number of years, the French Society for Medicinal Chemistry (Société de Chimie Thérapeutique – SCT) has paid full attention to this evolution, and this year again, the 46th International Conference on Medicinal Chemistry (RICT 2010) aims to bring together people concerned by the multiple aspects of Chemical Biology and Drug Discovery.

Dr Luc Van Hijfte
Research Director Janssen-Cilag and Head Medicinal Chemistry Europe Johnson & Johnson Pharmaceutical R&D