Molecular products, the subject of this chapter, are exemplified by pharmaceuticals. These products, which sell for much more than the cost of their ingredients, are sold to perform a particular task, like curing a disease. They differ dramatically from the commodity chemicals summarized in Chapter 6 and explored in detail in courses on chemical process design. Commodities sell for only a slight premium over the cost of their ingredients. They are sold into bulk markets like those for polymers, lubricants, and fertilizers. Patents on commodity products normally describe processes for their manufacture, not their application to a specific function. Not surprisingly, the presidents of commodity chemical companies tend to be engineers. The presidents of pharmaceutical companies, and of other molecular product companies, are usually chemists or physicians.

Molecular products depend on two keys: their discovery and their time to market. Drug discovery is remarkably inefficient. In justifying the high prices for drugs, company executives sometimes assert that it takes 10,000 candidates to find one successful drug. If this is true, it makes Napoleon's invasion of Russia, shown in Figure 8.0–1(a), look like a success. After all, Napoleon began with 472,000 men, and returned with 4900, a success rate one hundred times better than the drug industry.

We can imagine drug development as a similar campaign, shown light heartedly in Figure 8.0–1(b). We begin by identifying the target disease, and if possible, what we wish to manipulate (e.g. a particular protein).