Table 1.

Potential areas of insufficient or lacking expertise according to an expert panel

•Defining the criteria for the progression of a compound (go/no-go decisions), including compound properties.

•Structure-activity relationship to support lead optimization and medicinal chemistry strategy.

•Potential medical need, availability of patient populations for clinical trials, and value for patients globally.

•Innovative screens and assays suitable for the individual discovery project.

•Proof of concept in animals (including adequate study design and interpretation of results).

•Pharmacodynamic, pharmacokinetics/pharmacodynamics concepts for later stages of drug discovery.

•Testing the potential for the emergence of resistance (mutation frequency and other tests).

•Compound accumulation in gram-negative bacteria (a general scientific challenge).

•Overview of the drug R&D process, and translatability of a discovery project to a needed product.

•Preliminary toxicology studies.

•Mechanism of action studies, target validation.

•In vitro phenotypic activity testing.