The occurrence of such episodic transforming events and their impact on diagnos-
tic and therapeutic requirements cannot be predicted.
3 Technological Developments
This analysis focusses on technological innovations already occurring in the first
decade of the twenty-first century that might impact on product development two
decades hence. It builds on an analysis first reported in a review of this area (Riviere
2007 ). One way to approach this topic would be to review novel approaches to
therapy and assess how drugs might target critical processes. This approach has
been extensively used and reviewed during the compilation of the latest edition of a
broad-based veterinary pharmacology textbook (Riviere and Papich 2009 ), but
would only identify incremental advances in the discipline. A second approach
which has been adopted is to assess how technology facilitates both rapid screening
for pharmacological activity and more controlled and targeted delivery of existing
drugs, as well as expediting and increasing the focus of the drug development
process. The exponential growth of all areas of biological and medical sciences has
led to an increased understanding of the molecular basis of both disease and drug
action. For example, increased knowledge of and greater quantitation of how
metabolism and drug transporters affect absorption, distribution, excretion and
metabolism (ADME) processes, as well as their subsequent pharmacodynamic
activity, has increased markedly in recent years (Yengi et al. 2007 ), as discussed
in chapters, “Pharmacogenomics in Domestic Animal Species” and “Drug Delivery
Systems in Domestic Animal Species” of this text. These developments, together
with the growth in, and increased sophistication of, computational pharmacology,
will greatly accelerate drug development, as well as changing the nature of the
discipline.
The following six areas of endeavour are particularly likely to significantly
affect future drug developments in veterinary medicine:
(a) Further advances in computer technology
(b) Microfluidics
(c) Nanotechnology
(d) High-throughput screening
(e) Increased control and targeting of drug delivery
(f) Increased knowledge of pharmacogenomics
Major breakthroughs in expediting drug development would be facilitated by the
combination of two or more of these areas to yield both novel products and
development strategies. The possibility of interactions inevitably increases the
uncertainty of predicting what will emerge in the coming decades from interactions
between multiple independent pathways. How interactions between diverse sys-
tems can transform a discipline is exemplified in the developments of DNA micro-
array technology and of novel drugs specifically designed for modern drug delivery
New Technologies for Application to Veterinary Therapeutics 195