Drugs Looking For Diseases: Innovative Drug Research And The Development Of The Beta Blockers And The Calcium Antagonists (developments In Cardiovascular Medicine)

We all know how much time, effort and money it takes to develop a new drug. Hundreds of chemical compounds have to be synthesized and thousands of different activities in biology, physiology, pharmacology, clinical investigation, management and marketing have to be initiated and coordinated. Each new drug starts a voyage of discovery through an unmapped terrain which is shrouded in mist and beset by pitfalls, as Dr. Rein Vos puts it in his absorbing inside story of the development of the beta-adrenoceptor blocking agents and the calcium antagonists. Indeed we know, for example, how long it took before the theory of Ahlquist of the alpha and beta adrenergic receptors was widely accepted. Similarly, it suffices to memorize shortly the difficulty of expanding the new concept of calcium antagonism through the national German boundaries into the world. This shows how laborious and complex pharmaceutical progress is, and we all will benefit from a deeper understanding of the process of innovative drug research. Front Matter....Pages i-xxix The controlled clinical trial — A model for the intricate relationships between clinical medicine and drug research....Pages 1-19 The architecture of drug discovery....Pages 21-70 Experimental and therapeutic profiling in drug innovation: the early history of the beta blockers....Pages 71-79 Industrial research and beta blockade....Pages 81-122 Verapamil: dying drug or sleeping beauty?....Pages 123-155 Metamorphosis of a disease Profiles of angina pectoris in Anglo-American medicine....Pages 157-184 Targeting in drug research and the medical scene....Pages 185-237 Search processes, profiles and therapeutic practice in drug discovery....Pages 239-266 The enigma of drug discovery....Pages 267-279 Back Matter....Pages 281-381