New paradigm for drug discovery based on network pharmacology

The reasons for 30% of failures in new drug candidates being translated into effective therapies in the decade world widely were analyzed in this article. The fundamental problem might not be technological,or scientific but philosophical for the rational drug design and the research paradigm. There was a trend for integration of poly-angles,i.e. genomics,proteomics,system biology and network pharmacology in drug research and development,due to the fact that the complex disease could not be prevented by affecting a single target. The strategy should focus on interfering with the disease network rather than some individual gene and target protein. We reviewed the recent studies on the disease-gene-target-drug network,including the topology of network pharmacology and some methods for polypharmacology design,and analyzed some problems and challenges in these studies.