The azithromycin success story

Is the process of discovery, development and introduction of an original drug to the market a kind of miracle? What type of expertise is needed in order to achieve such a great medical, ethical and commercial success? Which scientific disciplines are most relevant to achieve this goal? The combination of organic chemistry, analytical chemistry, biochemistry, biophysics, screening, solid-state chemistry, molecular biology, cheminformatics, bioinformatics, genomics, proteomics, cellomics, toxicology, preclinical development, and many other scientific disciplines could be considered as “prerequisite” for discovery and development of the new drug. Since the period “From Idea to Medicine” takes about 15 years on average, every introduction of a “new chemical entity” to the market is definitely a unique multidisciplinary event. The concept and discovery of azithromycin, one of the most important new drugs of the 20th century, is presented here as an example of a rational medicinal chemistry approach to drug design, applying classical SAR, to achieve an impressive drug discovery success story.