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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.

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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.

NameTypeNotes
Guide to Pharmacologyhttps://www.guidetopharmacology.org/#Pharmacology DatabaseThe IUPHAR/BPS Guide to Pharmacology is an excellent reference website containing details on various classes of drug targets, ligands, and diseases.
Assay Guidance Manualhttps://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK53196/#Pharmacology eBookThe 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.comhttps://drugbank.com/#Drug DatabaseDrugbank.com is a convenient secondary database to look up drug properties, references, etc. when starting a search on an investigational or clinical molecule.
DrugCentralhttps://drugcentral.org/Drug property databaseDrugCentral has a searchable database of drugs with certain annotated properties from the literature and calculated properties.
FDA Drug Labelshttps://labels.fda.gov/#FDA Drug LabelsThe 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.govhttps://www.clinicaltrials.gov/#Clinical Trials DatabaseThe 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.euhttps://www.clinicaltrialsregister.eu/ctr-search/searchClinical Trials DatabaseA similar database for clinical trials conducted in the EU
PDBhttps://www.rcsb.org/#Protein crystal structure databaseThe 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 Bookhttps://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/cder/ob/index.cfm#Drug patent and properties databaseThe FDA Orange Book contains information about everything related to drugs that have been patented, including expiration dates on APIs, formulations, etc.
PATENTSCOPEhttps://www.wipo.int/patentscope/en/#Worldwide patent databaseThe WIPO patent database is the most comprehensive searchable source for original patents online.
bindingdb.orghttps://www.bindingdb.org/bind/index.jsp#Binding data and co-crystal structure databaseBindingdb.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 MoaDhttp://bindingmoad.org/#Co-crystal structural databaseMoaD ("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.orghttps://www.chemicalprobes.org/#Chemical probe databaseThe 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.
PubChemhttps://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/#Molecule databasePubChem is maintained by the NIH, and contains comprehensive links on literature, patents, assays, etc. on any given compound.
Withdrawnhttp://cheminfo.charite.de/withdrawn/index.html#Database of withdrawn drugsWithdrawn 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.
SwissBioisosterehttp://www.swissbioisostere.ch/#Isostere searchSwissBioisostere is a useful brainstorming tool that suggests isosteric replacements for a given input.
GPCR databasehttps://gpcrdb.org/#GPCR databaseGPCRDB is a database on everything about GPCRs, with tools including sequence alignment and ligand sites.
PKI databasehttps://www.icoa.fr/pkidb/#Kinase inhibitor databasePKIDB is a database collecting all tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) in clinical trials.
MRC Kinase Profilinghttp://www.kinase-screen.mrc.ac.uk/kinase-inhibitors#TKI activity databaseThe MRC database has selectivity/activity data for a large number of known kinase inhibitors.
UniProthttps://www.uniprot.org/#Protein sequence informationUniProt provides useful tools to conduct sequence alignments and similarity searches between proteins of interest.
Rxlisthttps://www.rxlist.com/script/main/hp.asp#Drug information databaseRxlist is a more easily searchable and readable database of drug properties (symptoms, trial information, etc.) extracted from drug labels.
BioComhttps://biocomcro.org/cro-directory/#CRO DirectoryBiocom is a trade group of industry suppliers that maintains a directory of suppliers that can be useful when looking for partners.
Pharmaceutical Outsourcinghttps://www.pharmoutsourcing.com/25413-Contract-Pharmaceutical-Services-Clinical-Trial-Services/25415-Contract-Research-Organizations-Contract-Research-Services-CRO-Services/#CRO DirectoryThis page has a comprehensive list of potential partners for the drug development process, though it is not the easiest to navigate.
CDEKhttp://cdek.wustl.edu/#Clinical experience databaseCDEK is an open database of information on clinical candidates, with trial dates and links out to other databases.
Cortellishttps://www.cortellis.com/intelligence/login.do#Database of investigational and approved drug informationCortellis is well-annotated commercial database of information on everything drug-related, including forecast annual sales, patents, competitors, etc.
Pharmaprojectshttps://pharmaintelligence.informa.com/products-and-services/data-and-analysis/pharmaprojects#Database of commercial drug programs and statusPharmaprojects is a commercial database of information on pipeline programs with development status, trends, and therapeutic class status, maintained by Informa.
Citelinehttps://pharmaintelligence.informa.com/products-and-services/data-and-analysis/citeline#Database of clinical development informationCiteline (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.
KLIFSklifs.netKinase Structural DatabaseA searchable database of kinase ligands with links to their PDBs.

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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.

JournalAreaNotes
Medicinal Chemistry Reviewshttps://www.acsmedchem.org/?nd=armc#Small Molecule Drug DiscoveryMCR 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 Chemistryhttps://www.sciencedirect.com/bookseries/annual-reports-in-medicinal-chemistry#Small Molecule Drug DiscoveryARMC was the spiritual predecessor to MCR before ACS launched MCR.
Nature Reviews Drug Discoveryhttps://www.nature.com/nrd/#Drug DiscoveryNRDD 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 DiscoveryJMC contains case studies of high impact small molecule drug discovery programs and important reviews.
Molecular Cancer Therapeuticshttps://mct.aacrjournals.org/#Small and Large Molecule Drug DiscoveryBecause 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 DiscoveryAMCL 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 DiscoveryBMCL 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-chemistrySmall Molecule Drug DiscoveryBMC contains longer articles on drug discovery programs and many European and Japanese companies’ clinical candidates can be found here.
Journal of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeuticshttps://jpet.aspetjournals.org/#PharmacologyJPET contains pharmacological details on drug compounds, and often interesting mechanisms of action are disclosed here.
Drug Metabolism and Dispositionhttps://dmd.aspetjournals.org/#ADMETDMD often contains interesting new insights into how drugs are metabolized and lead to their effects in vivo.
New England Journal of Medicinehttps://www.nejm.org/#Clinical DataNEJM is the leading publication for clinical data, and high profile trial data is often released here first.

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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.

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Drug Discovery Publications

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