Like an obstacle course with relentless tests of skill and endurance, the path that drug compounds take from the laboratory to pharmacy shelves is an arduous one. At a cost of $250 million to $1 billion per drug, it seems like something of a minor miracle that patients have as many choices as they do.

It makes sense, then, for science and industry players to do all they can to remove as many obstacles as possible. That’s where Scott Weir, PharmD, PhD, comes in.

Weir has spent the last two decades helping develop new drugs in the pharmaceutical industry. That expertise made him a perfect fit for his new job as director of the Office of Therapeutics Discovery and Development established earlier this year as part of the KU Cancer Center.

Drug development will play a key role in the KU Cancer Center’s quest for NCI designation. This status will place the KU Cancer Center among a select group of U.S. cancer centers and will ignite cutting-edge cancer research and care for Kansans and citizens around the globe.

“It’s important we look at the key issues facing drug projects and then design and conduct experiments that address those issues,” Weir said. “In doing so, we’re advancing the most promising drugs.”

“A goal of the cancer center is to be a leading academic institution in advancing promising anti-cancer agents from discovery to patients. It will then be the pharmaceutical industry’s job to bring those drugs to the market, because they have the resources to do so.”

Weir has developed a valuable tool for assessing the key issues. With colleagues in the Product Development Core of KU’s Higuchi Biosciences Center, he crafted drug development project progression guidelines, defining a series of decision points and criteria for determining which compounds progress.

This is one of the tools that make the University of Kansas uniquely suited for successful drug development. Its Cancer Center and top-ranked School of Pharmacy are collaborating with the Stowers Institute for Medical Research in Kansas City to create highly focused, effective project teams.

Here’s how it works: medical research scientists identify the causes of disease, many of which are translated into drug targets; drug discovery scientists next synthesize and identify potential drug compounds that may be used in the treatment or prevention of the disease; and then numerous studies are conducted to select the most promising drug development candidates for human testing.

“The guidelines make the process much more efficient,” Weir said. “If a compound fails to meet the benchmarks, it doesn’t move forward, preserving resources for those that have a better chance of surviving the journey to the marketplace.”

Drug development at KU and other institutions across the nation is changing the face of medicine as promising new pharmaceutical compounds achieve FDA approval and reach patients. But the costs are staggering.