The more we learn, the less we seem to know. Drug discoverers must constantly struggle with incomplete data, albeit ever increasing amounts of it. However, we do know that many diverse illnesses share overlapping pathways and common mediators. Three Reviews in May's edition of Nature Reviews Drug Discovery discuss future approaches to treating diseases with inflammatory components. John Wallace and colleagues review the promise of nitric oxide (NO)-releasing aspirin for improving cardioprotection without unwanted gastrointestinal effects. The superoxide anion is an important pro-inflammatory mediator, and Daniela Salvemini and colleagues discuss superoxide-dismutase mimetic strategies for dealing with the damage caused by free radicals. In the third of these Reviews, Matthias Schwarz and Tim Wells consider novel therapeutics that modulate chemokine networks, which are involved in diseases ranging from viral infection to cancer. Something that all therapeutic approaches share is the need to negotiate the hazards of the development phase, and two articles in this issue address that topic. From the Analyst's Couch looks at recent trends in drug development cycles and, in his Timeline article, Ole Bjerrum discusses a new initiative to stimulate interdisciplinary efforts to smooth the drug development process within Europe. At the other end of the spectrum, the three remaining Reviews consider aspects of early-stage drug discovery. Raymond Salemme and colleagues describe a chemogenomics strategy for generating small-molecule compounds that can be screened against protein targets and used as drug leads. Peter Guengerich reviews potential applications of cytochrome P450 enzymes as tools in the discovery phase. Finally, Stephen Neidle and Gary Parkinson discuss routes to anticancer therapeutics that target telomere maintenance.