It’s the end of the year. Time to reflect on the past months and make projections for the year ahead. So, what lies ahead? Will 2010 be a continuation of “The Decade From Hell” as described by Time magazine? Or will the promise of recovery be fulfilled?

I sampled industry opinions at the recent annual meeting of the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists (AAPS) in Los Angeles. Drug researchers and industry vendors had different opinions, tied mostly to the recent fortunes of their industry segments. Perhaps one opinion described it best: Last year, people attended the event to look for new jobs. This year, people attended to look for new business. I take that to be a “half full” outlook.

I had the opportunity to experience firsthand one example of a new research venture growing during difficult economic times. In April 2009, the Burnham Institute for Medical Research at Lake Nona, opened in Orlando, Fla. When I visited in November, the 175,000 square foot facility still had that “new building” smell. The institute will serve as the research arm of a new Medical City under development in central Florida. A veterans’ hospital, children’s hospital, a medical school, and other research facilities are slated for the area.

Burnham’s state-of-the-art facility—one of only four NIH-funded comprehensive chemical screening centers—includes an ultra-high throughput screening center capable of conducting more than one million experiments per day. Research platforms in genomics and metabolomics will help scientists define genetic and molecular blueprints of specific diseases.
Two researchers at Burnham exuded optimism about the collaborative research efforts of Burnham. Gregory P. Roth, PhD, director of Medicinal Chemistry and Pharmacology, and Stephen J. Gardell, PhD, director, Translational Research Resources, both former pharmaceutical industry veterans, outlined plans for exploring new research areas in metabolic diseases and cardiovascular complications.

The Medical City at Lake Nona represents Orlando’s efforts to diversify from a tourism-driven economy. In tough economic times, such development is challenging. But as new buildings rise out of the Orlando landscape, the prospects for the next decade are looking up.

In this issue
As the new Burnham facility demonstrates, high-throughput screening operations are driven by automation. Automating compound and sample management presents challenges and hefty investments. In the cover story, experts from both pharma companies and instrumentation vendors provide recommendations for systems design.

In “2020: A New Drug Delivery Landscape”, Ian Mawhinney, Vice President, Cambridge Consultants looks forward a decade at potential changes in drug delivery practices and technologies. The prediction: changes in technologies and strategies will require delivery decisions to be made earlier in the development process. Other topics in this issue include digital imaging, flow cytometry, toxicology studies, and using LIMS to facilitate incurred sample reanalysis.

On behalf of the staff of Drug Discovery & Development, I wish you a happy holiday season and a prosperous new year.