I am no expert but this was pretty much what I heard over and over when working in contact with pharma people around e.g. cheminformatics ML workshops and such. I think it’s well possible that this was meant as shorthand for a more complex “of course there are still tons of molecules that however aren’t even worth the effort of trying to synthesise and test, but all the small (< 100 atoms) candidates that even make sense to try have been explored to death” statement. Like, obviously you can do a bunch of weird small metallorganics I guess but if your reasonable assumption is that all of them are simply going to wreck someone’s kidneys and/or liver that’s not worth pursuing.
Then of course there’s regulatory and research costs, and part of the problem can be simply a classic “Hubbert peak” situation where really it’s the diminishing returns on mining further the configuration space of those molecules that make it impractical.
I am no expert but this was pretty much what I heard over and over when working in contact with pharma people around e.g. cheminformatics ML workshops and such. I think it’s well possible that this was meant as shorthand for a more complex “of course there are still tons of molecules that however aren’t even worth the effort of trying to synthesise and test, but all the small (< 100 atoms) candidates that even make sense to try have been explored to death” statement. Like, obviously you can do a bunch of weird small metallorganics I guess but if your reasonable assumption is that all of them are simply going to wreck someone’s kidneys and/or liver that’s not worth pursuing.
Then of course there’s regulatory and research costs, and part of the problem can be simply a classic “Hubbert peak” situation where really it’s the diminishing returns on mining further the configuration space of those molecules that make it impractical.
That’s unexpected and interesting, thanks.