Microfluidic technologies for drug discovery and development: friend or foe?

There is a point in the evolution of every new technology when questions need to be asked regarding its usefulness and impact. Although microfluidic technologies have drastically decreased the scales at which laboratory processes can be performed and have enabled scientific advances that would have otherwise not been possible, it is time to consider whether these technologies are more disruptive than enabling. Here, my aims are to introduce researchers in the broad fields of drug discovery and development to the advantages and disadvantages of microfluidic technologies, to highlight current work showing how microfluidic technologies can be used at different stages in the drug discovery and development process, to discuss how we can transfer academic breakthroughs in the field of microfluidic technologies to industrial environments, and to examine whether microfluidic technologies have the potential to cause a fundamental paradigm shift in the way that drug discovery and development occurs.