When a medicine is in development, questions emerge such as “What’s the right dose?” and “Would the medicine work better for certain people?” That’s where our Development Sciences team comes in. Their mission is to translate scientific hypotheses into therapeutic possibilities, understand the safety of a medicine and figure out the proper dosages.

Below we’ve gathered perspectives from researchers working in our Development Sciences group. Watch to learn more about the roles they play in bringing new medicines to people.

Safety Assessment

All medicines come with varying levels of risk. It's important that we understand those risks sooner rather than later. The safety assessment team starts working while medicines are still in the research stage and they continue to follow them through clinical development and evaluate a medicine’s safety even after a medicine is approved.

Pharmacokinetics, Pharmacodynamics and Clinical Pharmacology

Before a potential medicine is used to help treat someone, researchers need to develop simulations to test how it might behave in the body. We need to understand where it goes, how long it will last, and if it will reach its intended target.

“Clinical pharmacology is the science of learning what the body does to a drug – where does it go, how is it absorbed, how is it cleared, how is it metabolized.”
– Amita Joshi, Vice President and Global Head of Clinical Pharmacology

Bioanalytical Sciences

As our medicines get more complex so do the methods we use to understand how they work. In BioAnalytical Sciences, we study how the chemical composition of the medicine interacts with the body.

“BioAnalytical Sciences specializes in implementing technologies in order to measure the molecules in clinical samples from patients,”
– Patricia Siguenza, Head of BioAnalytical Sciences

Biomarker Development

Some medicines are designed to target specific people who have a particular form of a disease. It’s the job of the Diagnostic Discovery team to make sure the medicines developed match those specific targets.

Researching diagnostics is one of the first steps to developing targeted medicines. By understanding the underlying biology of disease, we can develop targeted medicines as well as diagnostic tests. While some medicines are for a broad population, others are intended for a specific population defined by biomarkers.

If you’re interested in learning more about how a medicine is discovered, developed, tested and ultimately approved, check out Making Medicine.