A survey, with a 71% response rate, of 78 small molecule drug discovery centers located at US universities or nonprofit research organizations found that cancer and infectious disease were the most prevalent therapeutic areas, with 86% and 71% of respondents, respectively, including these areas among their projects. The top three target-class focuses were phenotypic assays (20%), “undisclosed targets” (16%), protein kinases (12%) and “other non-enzyme proteins” (12%). The top three research capabilities reported were “in vitro or cell-based primary assay development” (93%), “cellular biology and secondary functional assay development” (79%) and target identification (77%). Federal contracts or grants accounted for an average of 41% of the centers’ total funding. Operating expenses varied greatly, but 57% of respondents reported $2 million or less. Sixty-four percent of respondents expect funding to increase over the next five years, and 18% each expect it to stay the same and to decrease. Insufficient funding was cited by 47% of respondents as a substantial obstacle.

Source: Nature Reviews Drug Discovery