In the past, the discovery of many drugs targeted towards receptors were based on a lot of experimental trial and error
using chemical methods.
Currently, in the era of more affordable computing power, the trend is to use computers to aid in rational drug design.
Table I. Classical Drug Research Vs Rational Drug Design
| Classical Approach | Rational Drug Design (in the future) | |
| Specificity | Many current drugs have non-specific binding, leading to many side effects. | Ligands-Receptor interactions designed to be highly specific, helping to reduce non -specific binding and thus side effects. |
| Cost | Pharmaceutical companies have generally always spent a lot of money for research and development of new drugs, and a lot of money has been wasted using the trial and error approach. | Rational drug design will drive more productive research and lower costs. |
| Speed of development | Drug product development will continue take longer as drugs discovered using classical approaches are being exhausted. | As techniques in rational drug design is improved, time of development of new drugs will be drastically reduced. |