[Medicines: what has the last decade given us and what can we expect in the coming 10 years?]

Abstract

Recent years have seen important changes in pharmacology. New techniques have been developed which are increasingly aimed at smaller groups of patients or even individual patients. In the past, thousands of chemical molecules were tested on a potential molecular target and the most effective molecules were selected. Nowadays a growing number of drugs are designed to aim at a specific molecular target, an example being monoclonal antibodies. There are developments that go fundamentally further and enable patients to be treated in an increasingly targeted and individual manner. These new therapies (i.e., Advanced Therapy Medicinal Products) are based on different principles than those of classical pharmacotherapy, and require different risk assessments as well as a different regulatory system. In this paper we discuss a selection of the developments in pharmacotherapy that have taken place during the past decade. In addition, we look into what sort of developments can be expected in the future.