The vast majority of drugs approved by the FDA act through binding to and changing the activity of protein targets. These targets could be human proteins or proteins from pathogens that infect humans. One measure of the remaining opportunities available for new drug discovery is the number of proteins that have not yet been targeted by a drug. To this end, the Knowledge Management Center of the IDG Program compiled all the information about which proteins are targeted by all the US FDA approved drugs. Through this effort, they were able to show that 1,414 approved drugs act through targeting 667 human and 189 pathogen proteins. By examining trends in the proteins being targeted by new drugs, the authors were able to determine which types of proteins have been the most successful targets for new medications for particular classes of diseases.  This data can also be used to understand which human proteins have not yet been targeted by drug development efforts, thus cataloging the unexplored space from which new drugs can be designed in the future.

Reference

• A comprehensive map of molecular drug targets. Santos R1, Ursu O, Gaulton A, Bento AP, Donadi RS, Bologa CG, Karlsson A, Al-Lazikani B, Hersey A, Oprea TI, Overington JP. Nat Rev Drug Discov. 2017 Jan; 16(1):19-34.