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Nature's contribution to today's pharmacopeia

Nature Biotechnology volume 32, pages 979–980 (2014)Cite this article

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To the Editor

Two decades after mainstream drug discovery shifted its focus away from bioprospecting and natural products (NPs)1, a systematic survey of new molecular entities (NMEs) approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) indicates that NPs still make a substantial contribution to today's new drugs2,3. For the 132 drugs approved by the FDA from 2008 to 2012, ∼30% originated from natural sources. The analysis presented here suggests that the contribution of NPs to recent NME development remains robust and may be under appreciated. What's more, we identify key traits in NME leads originating from natural sources that can inform drug discovery efforts going forward.

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Acknowledgements

This study was supported by NUS Academic Research Fund (R-148-000-181-112) and NGS Scholarship in Singapore, Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology 863 Hi-Tech Program (2007AA02Z160) and Key Special Project Grant (2009ZX09501-004), and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities of China.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Shenzhen Kivita Innovative Drug Discovery Institute, Pharmaceutical Sciences, School of Medicine, Tsinghua University, Beijing, P.R. China, and the Ministry-Province Jointly Constructed Base for State Key Lab-Shenzhen Key Laboratory of Chemical Biology, the Graduate School at Shenzhen, Tsinghua University, Shenzhen, P.R. China.,

    Lin Tao, Chun Yan Tan, Chun Yan Tan, Yu Yang Jiang & Yu Zong Chen

  2. Department of Pharmacy, Bioinformatics and Drug Design Group, and Center for Computational Science and Engineering, National University of Singapore, Singapore

    Lin Tao, Feng Zhu, Chu Qin, Cheng Zhang & Yu Zong Chen

  3. NUS Graduate School for Integrative Sciences and Engineering, Singapore

    Lin Tao, Chu Qin & Yu Zong Chen

  4. State Key Laboratory of Medicinal Chemistry & Biology, Tianjin International Joint Academy of Biotechnology & Medicine, Tianjin, China

    Feng Xu

Authors
  1. Lin Tao
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  2. Feng Zhu
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  3. Chu Qin
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  4. Cheng Zhang
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  5. Feng Xu
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  7. Yu Yang Jiang
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Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Yu Yang Jiang or Yu Zong Chen.

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Tao, L., Zhu, F., Qin, C. et al. Nature's contribution to today's pharmacopeia. Nat Biotechnol 32, 979–980 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/nbt.3034

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