Despite tremendous challenges facing the pharmaceutical industry, it continues with its commitment to innovation and the discovery of novel drugs to address unmet medical needs. Indeed, medicinal chemists face a challenge of their own. Trying to survive in a changing environment where pharma is focusing on biologics drug candidates will require chemists to adapt.

CHEManager International asked R&D experts of chemical and pharmaceutical companies to elaborate on their research strategy and share their opinion with our readers. In detail, we interviewed professionals ranging from CEOs to heads of R&D and process development about:

Challenges and changes affecting the work of R&D chemists in the future.

Jason Apter:Ž It is not news that chemists are facing significant challenges in their labs today. The current economic pressure on research has made downsizing and materials conservation a new constant. But there is reason to be hopeful. Chemists have been publishing breakthrough methods at an unprecedented rate, enabling innovative methods to be shared widely in order to conserve time and to leverage the expertise of the scientific community. Openly sharing revolutionary approaches has already led to the widespread adoption of high-throughput experimentation — HTE.

“The future is the coveted
ability to harness databases
that extend the individual
knowledge base to the collective.”

Jason Apter,
Head of Research Solutions,
Life Science Business Sector,
Merck

This rapid, parallel method can be miniaturized and scaled for quick identification of the most promising methods while sparing precious substrates and allowing valuable research time to be devoted to strategic goals. But this is an incremental step forward. The future is the coveted ability to harness databases that extend the individual knowledge base to the collective. On the horizon, the promise of smart chemical tools is coming into focus. Proven successful, they will change the way we do chemistry. They will enable many chemists to uncover new approaches to solve their most difficult problems.

At Merck’s life science business, with our celebrated Aldrich tradition of “chemists helping chemists,” we are proud to enable chemists to generate faster, more reproducible results. We are proud to support chemists on their unique discovery journey. We strongly believe the best days of chemistry are yet to come.