Opportunities and challenges in the discovery of new central nervous system drugs.

There have been relatively few new mechanism-based approvals for nervous system relevant drugs over the past 5 years, despite the increasing budgets of pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies. The genomic revolution has provided scientists with many molecular targets for drug discovery and research advances in chemistry, drug metabolism, pharmacology, and toxicology have provided much insight into understanding the pitfalls of the drug discovery and development process. Herein is provided a perspective on both the opportunities and challenges in the discovery and development of novel medicines for the treatment of human CNS disorders.