Discovery and Development of Novel Drugs.

Drug discovery and development process is nowadays conducted in relatively standardised sequence of phases, starting with Discovery and being followed by Preclinical, Clinical and Non-Clinical Development. Discovery phase is divided in Hit Finding, Lead generation, Lead Optimisation and Candidate Identification Phase. Main drivers of the whole process are regulatory requirements and the aim to eliminate the unnecessary spending by early elimination of unlikely drug candidates. Marine products, once purified, isolated and produced in required quantities, follow the same route as any other synthetic drug.