Accurate prediction — from in vivo drug behaviour to market analysis — is an important aspect of drug development. This month's 'Guide to Drug Discovery' article by Pritchard and colleagues gives an overview of approaches for generating predictive data to inform decisions during non-clinical drug development, and a complementary discussion of the use of biomarkers to reduce late-stage attrition and speed up the clinical development of new drugs is provided by Frank and Hargreaves. One new drug that has recently been approved is gefitinib, a kinase inhibitor for the treatment of non-small-cell lung cancer, which is featured in this month's 'Fresh from the Pipeline'. Staying with the topic of kinase inhibitors, Manning and Davis review efforts to develop inhibitors of the c-Jun N-terminal kinases for the treatment of a range of diseases, including rheumatoid arthritis and cancer. Drugs for another prominent disease — HIV — are discussed in several articles, including this month's 'From the Analyst's Couch'. Enfuvirtide, a 36-amino-acid peptide that has recently entered the HIV market, has a highly complex manufacturing process — a staggering 106 steps — which is described by Bray in his 'Innovation' article. Chemokine receptor antagonists also have potential as anti-HIV drugs, and De Clercq's 'Timeline' article tracks the evolution of the chemokine receptor antagonist AMD3100 and its congeners. In our fifth 'Case history' article, Tobert highlights another drug development story — that of the HMG-CoA reductase inhibitors (statins) — from the initial 'cholesterol controversy' to their present position as widely used cholesterol-lowering drugs that reduce the morbidity and mortality associated with cardiovascular disease. Teague's discussion of the importance of protein flexibility, which has often been neglected in drug design, rounds off the July issue.