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Author believes that process chemists should be involved as early as the lead-optimization phase. Typically, process chemists would have about six months before they needed to provide material to support the preclinical development. "That worked when the molecules were fairly simple, but now we're seeing very complex molecules with several-stage syntheses," he says. "We don't have the capacity in our process R&D to really be able to get the chemistry right in this six months, to be able to quickly support the preclinical work." Interacting with discovery chemists during the early phases of a project gives process chemists a chance to figure out the consequences of moving certain compounds into development "We could also be proactive in the sense that we try to influence our colleagues in medicinal chemistry, trying to go for simplicity instead of overemphasizing the complexity," he says. Author disapproves of the trend toward making drug molecules increasingly complex
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