How creative is the new drug development process?

To start,it is worth defining what it means for something to be creative.
  • OED: The use of imagination or original ideas to create something; inventiveness.
  • MW: Marked by the ability or power to create : given to creating.
  • CALD: Producing or using original and unusual ideas.
  •  Having the quality or power of creating. resulting from originality of thought, expression, etc.; imaginative. 

A recurring theme of being creative is regularly creating something new. I think something that hurts the perception of creativity in drug development is the notion that to create, one must make a physical discovery. A common criticism of the bio-pharma industry is that a lot of the creativity comes from academia where they are physically creating molecular leads or technologies. Thus, because drug development is just development, it can’t be creative.
I have to disagree with that criticism. Meaning that we didn’t come up with something physically novel does not mean drug development is not creating.
Drug development is essentially the process of creating the body of work that supports the clinical advancement of a concept to a usable product by a patient. Given the billions of dollars that is put into getting an approved drug, this is certainly not an easy process. Moving forward, I’m going to break this up into the clinical aspects of drug development and the CMC aspects.

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