Perspectives of biomolecular NMR in drug discovery: the blessing and curse of versatility

The versatility of NMR and its broad applicability to several stages in the drug discovery process is well known and generally considered one of the major strengths of NMR (Pellecchia et al., Nature Rev Drug Discov 1:211–219, 2002; Stockman and Dalvit, Prog Nucl Magn Reson Spectrosc 41:187–231, 2002; Lepre et al., Comb Chem High throughput screen 5:583–590, 2002; Wyss et al., Curr Opin Drug Discov Devel 5:630–647, 2002; Jahnke and Widmer, Cell Mol Life Sci 61:580–599, 2004; Huth et al., Methods Enzymol 394:549–571, 2005b; Klages et al., Mol Biosyst 2:318–332, 2006; Takeuchi and Wagner, Curr Opin Struct Biol 16:109–117, 2006; Zartler and Shapiro, Curr Pharm Des 12:3963–3972, 2006). Indeed, NMR is the only biophysical technique which can detect and quantify molecular interactions, and at the same time provide detailed structural information with atomic level resolution. NMR should therefore be ideally suited and widely requested as a tool for drug discovery research, and numerous examples of drug discovery projects which have substantially benefited from NMR contributions or were even driven by NMR have been described in the literature. However, not all pharmaceutical companies have rigorously implemented NMR as integral tool of their research processes. Some companies invest with limited resources, and others do not use biomolecular NMR at all. This discrepancy in assessing the value of a technology is striking, and calls for clarification—under which circumstances can NMR provide added value to the drug discovery process? What kind of contributions can NMR make, and how is it implemented and integrated for maximum impact? This perspectives article suggests key areas of impact for NMR, and a model of integrating NMR with other technologies to realize synergies and maximize their value for drug discovery.