Developing new metal-based therapeutics: challenges and opportunities.

Unexpected side effects and problems experienced in clinical trials have created a difficult environment for those developing new pharmaceuticals and, as a consequence, the number of new chemical entities being registered has fallen to a historic low. Those developing metal-based therapeutics will face the same difficulties, but this environment also provides many opportunities for creative solutions to be applied to overcoming the problems and concerns. In this perspective, these challenges and opportunities are considered in the context of examples of a number of classes of metal-based therapeutics.