NMR in pharmaceutical discovery and development

Drug discovery and development is a complex, time-consuming and costly endeavour. Not only does it take many years and several billion dollars to discover and develop a drug, it also requires the coordinated and seamless interplay of a plethora of skills and technologies. Owing to this complexity and cost, drug discovery and development is an area of constant innovation, and new technologies emerge and have to prove themselves in a highly competitive field. Many of them decline in importance with the passage of time, and only some persist. NMR spectroscopy is one of those technologies that has persisted for many decades, and continues to play an important and sometimes essential role, especially when dealing with difficult targets.