When future historians look back on the greatest scientific advancements of the 20th century, they will without a doubt focus on only three events: the Apollo Moon landing, the invention of the microprocessor, and possibly the greatest scientific endeavor yet, genomics, the science of identifying genes and how they work in humans. It is possibly not a total coincidence then that two of this centuries greatest advancements have grown out of the same cradle of technology, Silicon Valley. The first advancement was the invention of the microprocessor, and the second was the invention of the DNA chip, also called the DNA array or biochip.

These DNA chips are the newest tools being used in the study of genomics. DNA chips are changing the way researchers analyze the genetic make-up of cells, and will soon render traditional pharmaceutical research obsolete. This allows for whole new generations of drugs that will be made to combat diseases by effecting changes in a their specific genetic design.

Currently the pharmaceutical industry is a very high risk industry in which fewer than one in ten promising drug products ever makes it through the testing p

The pharmaceutical industry today is a huge multi-billion dollar industry that is constantly growing and changing. Pharmaceutical companies, such as Merck, Glaxo Wellcome, and Bristol-Myers Squibb, are constantly trying to come up with new drugs to get out onto the market. However, there are many problems with the way these new drugs are developed. The main problem being the high level of risk involved when trying to develop new drugs.

Any genetic material being tested is first labeled with a fluorescent marker. When the marked DNA is applied to the DNA chip, any strands of marked DNA whose nucleotide sequence is complimentary to the sequence of a given DNA probe, will hybridize to the DNA probe and hence "stick" to the chip. Any other marked DNA that does not compliment one of the particular sequences of a probe on the chip, will not stick, and can be washed away. Even DNA segments that partially complement and bond with the DNA of the probe, will be washed away with a 97 percent success rate.

A new drug candidate must be able to have the same beneficial effect on a large segment of the target population. If a drug only works on a small specific group of the target population, then the drug will probably not be FDA approved. Also, a drug that does not demonstrate its effectiveness over a large segment of the target population will probably not be very cost effective, considering the average costs of developing new drugs.

For the most part, the only companies that can afford to produce drugs are the multi-billion dollar companies, such as Merck. These companies usually employ the strategy of spreading the high risks of drug development over many different projects. As a consequence, many investors are apprehensive about smaller pharmaceutical companies, even if they appear to be on the verge of developing a promising product. Because of this trial and error factor, it has been estimated that the cost of bringing a lead drug candidate to the market is in the range of 260 to 320 million dollars. Because of the high risk involved, and the high costs of developing and testing new drugs, only about three out of ten drugs that finally make it to the pharmacy shelves ever recover the average development costs of new medicines. Also, the patents on about 30 major drugs will be expiring within the next three years, so there is incredible pressure on companies to develop new major drugs to keep their profits up.

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Approximate Word count = 1716
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page double spaced)