The four fields of genomics, informatics, combinatorial chemistry, and high-throughput screening represent a technical revolution for drug discovery and development that has come about over the past half decade. It is expected that these changes will continue to play an increasingly important role in the therapeutics industry for years to come. All four of these fields work together to provide companies with strategic advantages that can result in greater productivity, novel drugs, and reductions in time and costs. Failure to incorporate these tools into drug development is likely to lead to greater difficulty in maintaining competitiveness in the increasingly global pharmaceutical industry.

This conference will highlight some of the leading approaches and technical developments in each of these fields. Using genomics for understanding biology, target identification, target validation, and evaluation of candidate compounds relies on quickly advancing techniques such as microarrays, SNP detection, and pharmacogenomics. Combinatorial library approaches are becoming increasingly sophisticated, incorporating more druglike diversity, novel chemistries, and greater experience. The rates for high-throughput screening have also increased, with greater automation and miniaturization complementing new assay formats and detection techniques. Overarching all of these areas is the critical role of informatics, both bioinformatics and chemoinformatics.