It takes over a billion dollars and ~15 years to bring a new drug to market. Drug Discovery, the key part in this process, aims to discover completely new drug molecules to treat or cure a disease or condition. An intensively intellectual part of this process is studying data about past molecules to design the next molecule which could be better. The data involve assays, which themselves are measurements of a molecule’s action, typically in a test tube against known agents or in a lab animal. These assays typically serve as surrogates for the drugs true potential.
