The paper is highly cited because at the time of publication there were few "up-to-date" reviews of the role of natural product chemistry in drug discovery. In addition, the review discusses the impact of natural product-derived drugs in terms of drug sales, as well as giving a snapshot of natural product-derived drugs in clinical trials and cutting edge techniques used in the field. Finally, the Journal of Natural Products has a wide readership outside of the field and is easily accessible on-line through ACS (American Chemical Society).

“...the methods reviewed may be new to many readers and useful for groups who want to quicken the pace of their research.”

 

No, as the paper is a review the methodologies described are not new as such. However, the methods reviewed may be new to many readers and useful for groups who want to quicken the pace of their research.

Despite natural products traditionally playing an important role in drug discovery, most pharmaceutical companies have either terminated or considerably scaled down their natural product operations. This is despite approximately 50% of drugs being natural products, semi-synthetic derivatives of natural products, or synthetic compounds derived from a natural product lead structure.

In addition, a significant number of natural product-derived drugs are ranked in the top 35 worldwide selling ethical drugs or are in late-stage clinical development. The failure of alternative drug discovery methods to deliver many lead compounds in key therapeutic areas like immunosuppression, anti-infectives, and metabolic diseases has led to a renewed interest in natural product research. However, in order to continue to be competitive with other drug discovery methods, continual improvements in the speed of the screening, isolation, and structure elucidation processes are required.

Also, the suitability of screens for natural product extracts and issues involved with large-scale compound supply by synthesis, semi-synthesis, or biological means, needs to be considered. By taking into account all of these factors, natural product chemistry will have an important place in drug discovery side by side with other techniques.

I became involved with natural product drug discovery as an extension of my Ph.D. studies in marine natural products at The University of Melbourne and postdoctoral work in the Cancer Research Institute at Arizona State University. I was first involved in industrial drug discovery within the Griffith University/AstraZeneca collaboration in Brisbane, Australia, before heading to Singapore in 1999 to head the chemistry group at the Centre for Natural Product Research, which collaborated with GlaxoSmithKline. In 2002, the Centre for Natural Product Research corporatized to become MerLion Pharmaceuticals where I continue to work today as Director of Natural Product Chemistry.

It is important that state-of-the-art natural product research continues to flourish in academic and industrial laboratories so that new, novel, biologically-active templates can be discovered. Unfortunately, in the last few years, funding has been extremely difficult to obtain for many researchers and, as a result, many laboratories don't have access to key technological advances. Finally, many universities, even those which traditionally were strong in natural product research, no longer employ natural products chemists, which in the longer term will lead to a shortage of people who possess cutting edge skills.