A Systematic Review Examining how 'omics are are Applied to Drug Development Research

Abstract

Background: The development of a new drug can be a very time consuming and expensive process, which can take up to 15 years and cost billions of dollars. This review will explore the omics, in particular: genomics, proteomics, transcriptomics and metabolomics, and how they can be incorporated in drug development research. Aim: Construct a comprehensive review exploring the benefits and drawbacks of applying the ‘omics’ to drug development research. Method: A systematic literature search was conducted using appropriate databases. Only records published between the years 2013-2017 were used, with the words ‘drug’ and ‘development’ in the title and at least one of the relevant ‘omics’. All records that were duplicates, not free full text articles or not written in English were excluded. Results: After conducting the search 12 articles were found to meet to inclusion criteria. ‘Omics was shown to be a valuable tool in: drug repositioning, reducing adverse drug reactions, predicting toxicology at early stages of drug discovery, personalised medication, understanding disease pathogenesis and decreasing the cost and time involved in the drug development process. Conclusion: The ‘omics can all be applied successfully to different parts of the drug discovery process. It was found that applying the ‘omics could be used in finding new drug targets, understanding how diseases are developed and development of personalised medicine. The ‘omics’ also showed promise of cost-effectiveness over current methods of drug development.