Applications of molecular imaging in drug discovery and development process.

The process of drug discovery and development requires enormous resources and time, with increasing cost for new drug development. Molecular imaging techniques have tremendous potential for improving the efficiency of drug screening, assessing the pharmacokinetics of new drugs, and evaluating drug effects. Appropriate application of molecular imaging to drug discovery and development can markedly reduce costs and the time required for new drug development. This review focuses on the contributions of molecular imaging for drug discovery and development, particularly drug screening, pharmacokinetic, preclinical and clinical drug evaluation, and for personalized and lesionalized medicine.