Opportunities in drug discovery innovation and the vital role of preclinical research

Published 29 August 2026

Author(s): Werngard Czechtizky

1. Introduction

Innovation converts new ideas into practical products/applications that solve relevant problems. Important innovations are characterized by a strong and visible impact on users and high economic value, beyond novelty or technical feasibility. The impact of innovations should be measurable, convince users, and generate cost/time savings, higher revenue, or more customer satisfaction, while leading to high adoption and scaling. Drug discovery innovation includes pioneering science or front-end technologies that fundamentally change how drugs are designed or experimentally identified, optimized, and developed. The ultimate goal for drug discovery is higher drug quality, as well as faster and ideally cheaper access to new drugs for patients. Traditionally, the time from project start to drug approval has been 10–15 years, with cost estimates of up to $2.6B per approved drug and an average clinical success rate of 10–14%. For the preclinical space, and combining innovations from academic institutions, biotech, pharmaceutical, and tech companies, recent estimates claim an achievable reduction of median time from project start to development candidate of up to 50%, enabling timelines to development candidates of less than 2 years.