Abstract
Various gene products that play roles in oncogenesis and malignant progression of cancer have been identified following the recent development of cancer biology, which lead to the molecular target-based drug development. Molecular target-based drugs are targeted to such gene products that support the most critical functions of cancer. Therefore, they are expected to possess high efficacy against cancer and low toxicity to normal tissues of the host. The molecular target-based drug development started from the development of inhibitors of tyrosine kinases. The success of the development of Herceptin and Gleevec demonstrated the direction of such development is promising. The practical use of these molecular target-based drugs tells us the coming of new era of cancer chemotherapy.
Recently developed molecular target-based drugs are overviewed here.
