ChEMBL

I'm giving some talks over the summer, and am getting bored with some of the stuff I have, so I'm thinking of some new stuff to put in to add a bit of variety and interest. I'm getting interested in thinking about assay level attrition, and trying to put more of a taxonomy and inter-relationship mapping between assays used in drug discovery. As part of this, there is a cost component for each type of assay, going from very cheap to really really expensive. Here's a little picture from the presentation I've put together - I used educated guesses for the costs, so please, please critique them !


So, what do people think of the guesstimates of costs per compound per assay point on the picture above. I know it is really variable, there are startup costs to set something up, etc, etc. But what do you think about the orders of magnitude, are they about right? One of the key features of the numbers I've put there, are that there are big transitions at the switch between in silico and in vitro, and then on entering clinical trials.

The picture at the top of this post (about unicorns) is from the very funny http://www.depressedcopywriter.com/.