Drug Discovery Resources

Drug Hunter Resources | Drug Discovery Websites | Drug Discovery Journals | Drug Discovery Books | Drug Discovery Publications

Drug Hunter Resources

Drug Hunter is a growing, constantly updated repository of comprehensive yet easy-to-read drug discovery resources and references. We’re here so that professionals entering the field won’t need to read dozens of books just to get started.

We recommend checking out:

Here are some of the most popular resources on our site:

This page also lists other useful resources for drug discovery professionals while we continue to build drughunter.com for you.

Drug Discovery Websites and Factual Online Resources

If you have a suggestion that we’ve missed, feel free to reach out to dennis@drughunter.com.

Name	Link	Type	Notes
Guide to Pharmacology	https://www.guidetopharmacology.org/#	Pharmacology Database	The IUPHAR/BPS Guide to Pharmacology is an excellent reference website containing details on various classes of drug targets, ligands, and diseases.
Assay Guidance Manual	https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK53196/#	Pharmacology eBook	The Assay Guidance Manual is the ultimate reference for details surrounding assays for biological activity. Maintained by Eli Lilly scientists and the NCATS, it's widely regarded as the "tome" for in vitro pharmacology.
drugbank.com	https://drugbank.com/#	Drug Database	Drugbank.com is a convenient secondary database to look up drug properties, references, etc. when starting a search on an investigational or clinical molecule.
DrugCentral	https://drugcentral.org/	Drug property database	DrugCentral has a searchable database of drugs with certain annotated properties from the literature and calculated properties.
FDA Drug Labels	https://labels.fda.gov/#	FDA Drug Labels	The FDA is ultimately the most trustworthy and reliable source of any drug-related information online. The website is actually very easy to search and navigate, and links to all the primary data you need for approved drugs. The FDA has some online tools to do deep searches on all labels as well.
clinicaltrials.gov	https://www.clinicaltrials.gov/#	Clinical Trials Database	The US NIH's Clinical Trials database is a powerful tool to find primary data and status updates on investigational molecules. I often search molecule IDs using "other terms".
clinicaltrialsregister.eu	https://www.clinicaltrialsregister.eu/ctr-search/search	Clinical Trials Database	A similar database for clinical trials conducted in the EU
PDB	https://www.rcsb.org/#	Protein crystal structure database	The PDB is an incredible trove of highly curated structural information and links to primary references. Whenever I start a new target, I look through as many PDB codes of related protein-inhibitor complexes (if available) as possible to understand what I'm physically dealing with.
FDA Orange Book	https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/cder/ob/index.cfm#	Drug patent and properties database	The FDA Orange Book contains information about everything related to drugs that have been patented, including expiration dates on APIs, formulations, etc.
PATENTSCOPE	https://www.wipo.int/patentscope/en/#	Worldwide patent database	The WIPO patent database is the most comprehensive searchable source for original patents online.
bindingdb.org	https://www.bindingdb.org/bind/index.jsp#	Binding data and co-crystal structure database	Bindingdb.org is a highly curated bank of binding data extracted from publications and patents and crystal structure annotations. It's a great place to start to find previously identified inhibitors for a target class.
Binding MoaD	http://bindingmoad.org/#	Co-crystal structural database	MoaD ("Mother of all Databases") is a highly curated subset of the PDB of every high-quality example of protein-ligand binding. It is easily searchable with chemical substructures for ligands.
chemicalprobes.org	https://www.chemicalprobes.org/#	Chemical probe database	The chemical probes database is a high-quality manually curated set of compounds with more trustworthy biological activity. Before starting a biological study it is good to check for a curated tool here - the literature is replete with time-wasting bad actors.
PubChem	https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/#	Molecule database	PubChem is maintained by the NIH, and contains comprehensive links on literature, patents, assays, etc. on any given compound.
Withdrawn	http://cheminfo.charite.de/withdrawn/index.html#	Database of withdrawn drugs	Withdrawn is a useful, curated database of drugs that have been withdrawn for various reasons. A very valuable educational source for what to be careful of and why.
SwissBioisostere	http://www.swissbioisostere.ch/#	Isostere search	SwissBioisostere is a useful brainstorming tool that suggests isosteric replacements for a given input.
GPCR database	https://gpcrdb.org/#	GPCR database	GPCRDB is a database on everything about GPCRs, with tools including sequence alignment and ligand sites.
PKI database	https://www.icoa.fr/pkidb/#	Kinase inhibitor database	PKIDB is a database collecting all tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) in clinical trials.
MRC Kinase Profiling	http://www.kinase-screen.mrc.ac.uk/kinase-inhibitors#	TKI activity database	The MRC database has selectivity/activity data for a large number of known kinase inhibitors.
UniProt	https://www.uniprot.org/#	Protein sequence information	UniProt provides useful tools to conduct sequence alignments and similarity searches between proteins of interest.
Rxlist	https://www.rxlist.com/script/main/hp.asp#	Drug information database	Rxlist is a more easily searchable and readable database of drug properties (symptoms, trial information, etc.) extracted from drug labels.
BioCom	https://biocomcro.org/cro-directory/#	CRO Directory	Biocom is a trade group of industry suppliers that maintains a directory of suppliers that can be useful when looking for partners.
Pharmaceutical Outsourcing	https://www.pharmoutsourcing.com/25413-Contract-Pharmaceutical-Services-Clinical-Trial-Services/25415-Contract-Research-Organizations-Contract-Research-Services-CRO-Services/#	CRO Directory	This page has a comprehensive list of potential partners for the drug development process, though it is not the easiest to navigate.
CDEK	http://cdek.wustl.edu/#	Clinical experience database	CDEK is an open database of information on clinical candidates, with trial dates and links out to other databases.
Cortellis	https://www.cortellis.com/intelligence/login.do#	Database of investigational and approved drug information	Cortellis is well-annotated commercial database of information on everything drug-related, including forecast annual sales, patents, competitors, etc.
Pharmaprojects	https://pharmaintelligence.informa.com/products-and-services/data-and-analysis/pharmaprojects#	Database of commercial drug programs and status	Pharmaprojects is a commercial database of information on pipeline programs with development status, trends, and therapeutic class status, maintained by Informa.
Citeline	https://pharmaintelligence.informa.com/products-and-services/data-and-analysis/citeline#	Database of clinical development information	Citeline (Trialtrove, etc.) is a commercial database of information on clinical programs with information on clinical sites and investigators, patient enrollment, etc. useful for preparing for development issues well in advance.
KLIFS	klifs.net	Kinase Structural Database	A searchable database of kinase ligands with links to their PDBs.

Drug Discovery Journals

This list is not exhaustive (there’s literally hundreds in our team RSS feed) but this is a subjective list of where to find the most useful drug discovery articles for one entering the field. Experts all have their own list based on their therapeutic area(s) and focus areas. This doesn’t include major general publications such as Nature, Science, PNAS, or Cell, where the focus is not on drug discovery in particular, though key drug discovery papers will appear there.

Journal	Link	Area	Notes
Medicinal Chemistry Reviews	https://www.acsmedchem.org/?nd=armc#	Small Molecule Drug Discovery	MCR is an annual series that contains detailed drug discovery stories and reviews from leaders in the field. It contains numerous must-read articles every year.
Annual Reports in Medicinal Chemistry	https://www.sciencedirect.com/bookseries/annual-reports-in-medicinal-chemistry#	Small Molecule Drug Discovery	ARMC was the spiritual predecessor to MCR before ACS launched MCR.
Nature Reviews Drug Discovery	https://www.nature.com/nrd/#	Drug Discovery	NRDD contains articles of wide scope and high important on key topics in drug discovery, including for both small and large molecules, and other modalities.
J. Med. Chem.	https://pubs.acs.org/journal/jmcmar#	Small Molecule Drug Discovery	JMC contains case studies of high impact small molecule drug discovery programs and important reviews.
Molecular Cancer Therapeutics	https://mct.aacrjournals.org/#	Small and Large Molecule Drug Discovery	Because new modalities such as biologics and cell therapies are often tested in cancer first, MCT is a great source for first disclosures of drugs with new mechanisms of action.
ACS Med. Chem. Lett.	https://pubs.acs.org/journal/amclct#	Small Molecule Drug Discovery	AMCL contains timely short communications on high impact small molecule discovery programs.
Bioorg. Med. Chem. Lett.	https://www.sciencedirect.com/journal/bioorganic-and-medicinal-chemistry-letters#	Small Molecule Drug Discovery	BMCL contains short communications on interesting small molecule discovery programs, often with interesting structures. BMCL Digests are also great reviews on timely topics.
Bioorg. Med. Chem.	https://www.journals.elsevier.com/bioorganic-and-medicinal-chemistry	Small Molecule Drug Discovery	BMC contains longer articles on drug discovery programs and many European and Japanese companies’ clinical candidates can be found here.
Journal of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics	https://jpet.aspetjournals.org/#	Pharmacology	JPET contains pharmacological details on drug compounds, and often interesting mechanisms of action are disclosed here.
Drug Metabolism and Disposition	https://dmd.aspetjournals.org/#	ADMET	DMD often contains interesting new insights into how drugs are metabolized and lead to their effects in vivo.
New England Journal of Medicine	https://www.nejm.org/#	Clinical Data	NEJM is the leading publication for clinical data, and high profile trial data is often released here first.

Drug Discovery Books

While nothing serves as a replacement for industry experience, a few books serve as useful references and offer glimpses into what real world drug discovery is like. Here is a list of books we recommend as generally useful technical references or insightful introductions to drug discovery beyond any single technical field.

If you have a suggestion that we’ve missed, feel free to reach out to dennis@drughunter.com.