# Best Drug Discovery Software

  *By [Emma Stein](https://research.g2.com/insights/author/emma-stein)*

   Drug discovery software is used to develop new pharmaceutical drugs and test whether a newly created drug will be effective in treating a particular disease. Drug discovery software automates and leverages innovative technology that significantly cuts down on the arduous process of drug development, testing, and going to market.

Most drug discovery solutions offer screening, predictive analytics, modeling, simulation, and computational capabilities. Those functionalities help with tasks such as image analysis and clinical trial results submission, as well as ensuring accurate reproducibility. Researchers and scientists use drug discovery software to gain market intelligence, take advantage of advancements in drug design and synthesis, tackle evolving and adapting diseases, and maintain and manage the integrity of data as drugs transition from the discovery phase to the clinical trial phase.

To qualify for inclusion in the Drug Discovery category, a product must:

- Support the processes and workflows of pharmaceutical drug researchers and scientists
- Aggregate and analyze disease, chemical, drug, and other types of stored data
- Extract insight from datasets 
- Integrate with third-party modeling and visualization tools





## Category Overview

**Total Products under this Category:** 83


## Trust & Credibility Stats

**Why You Can Trust G2's Software Rankings:**

- 30 Analysts and Data Experts
- 100+ Authentic Reviews
- 83+ Products
- Unbiased Rankings

G2's software rankings are built on verified user reviews, rigorous moderation, and a consistent research methodology maintained by a team of analysts and data experts. Each product is measured using the same transparent criteria, with no paid placement or vendor influence. While reviews reflect real user experiences, which can be subjective, they offer valuable insight into how software performs in the hands of professionals. Together, these inputs power the G2 Score, a standardized way to compare tools within every category.


## Best Drug Discovery Software At A Glance

- **Best Free Software:** [CDD Vault](https://www.g2.com/products/cdd-vault/reviews)


## Top-Rated Products (Ranked by G2 Score)
### 1. [Signals ChemDraw](https://www.g2.com/products/signals-chemdraw/reviews)
  #1 trusted chemical drawing solution since 1985. ChemDraw solutions have provided powerful capabilities and integrations to help you quickly turn ideas & drawings into publications you can be proud of. A communication suite for management, reporting & presentation of your Chemistry research. ChemDraw is the solution that takes the chemical communication workflow to the next level. - Easily draw complex molecules and reactions at lightning speed. - Create realistic 3D conformation of your molecules in just a few clicks. - Make your chemistry more visually compelling and easier to follow. - Access safety data from regulatory agencies, find chemical suppliers. Consolidate fragmented processes for greater productivity and focus on your research. Effortlessly create publication-worthy chemical drawings. The ChemDraw Suite comes in different flavors: ChemDraw Prime, ChemDraw Professional, and Signals ChemDraw™. Each offering being tailored to the needs you have. ChemDraw Prime The most efficient chemical drawing application, ChemDraw Prime allows you to create publication-worthy drawings in minutes. ChemDraw Professional 1H and 13C NMR predictions, Name-to-Structure, Structure-to-Name, and integrations to scientific literature databases. Signals ChemDraw Streamlined molecule and reaction data management, all the way from drawing to collaboration and reporting.


  **Average Rating:** 4.4/5.0
  **Total Reviews:** 37


**Seller Details:**

- **Seller:** [Revvity Signals](https://www.g2.com/sellers/revvity-signals)
- **HQ Location:** Waltham, US
- **LinkedIn® Page:** https://www.linkedin.com/company/revvity-signals (445 employees on LinkedIn®)

**Reviewer Demographics:**
  - **Top Industries:** Research, Chemicals
  - **Company Size:** 39% Small-Business, 39% Mid-Market


### 2. [Epocrates](https://www.g2.com/products/epocrates/reviews)
  Epocrates specializes in creating point-of-care digital solutions designed to enhance the practice of medicine.


  **Average Rating:** 4.6/5.0
  **Total Reviews:** 19


**Seller Details:**

- **Seller:** [athenahealth](https://www.g2.com/sellers/athenahealth)
- **Year Founded:** 1997
- **HQ Location:** Watertown, MA
- **Twitter:** @athenahealth (24,433 Twitter followers)
- **LinkedIn® Page:** https://www.linkedin.com/company/athenahealth (8,728 employees on LinkedIn®)
- **Ownership:** NASDAQ: ATHN

**Reviewer Demographics:**
  - **Top Industries:** Hospital & Health Care
  - **Company Size:** 47% Enterprise, 26% Mid-Market


### 3. [DrugPatentWatch](https://www.g2.com/products/drugpatentwatch/reviews)
  Deep knowledge on pharmaceutical drugs - patents, suppliers, generics, formulation, and more.


  **Average Rating:** 4.3/5.0
  **Total Reviews:** 6


**Seller Details:**

- **Seller:** [DrugPatentWatch](https://www.g2.com/sellers/drugpatentwatch)
- **Year Founded:** 2003
- **HQ Location:** Washington, US
- **Twitter:** @DrugPatentWatch (14,298 Twitter followers)
- **LinkedIn® Page:** https://www.linkedin.com/company/drugpatentwatch/about/ (4 employees on LinkedIn®)

**Reviewer Demographics:**
  - **Company Size:** 67% Small-Business, 33% Mid-Market


### 4. [MicroTracker](https://www.g2.com/products/microtracker/reviews)
  Online, on-demand market research connecting you to the right healthcare stakeholders. MicroSurvey helps you design simple surveys, bringing you faster, quality data at a lower cost. Physicians complete short, 2-5 minute surveys they want to answer in the pauses of their day. Smart, on-demand technology designed to respect doctors’ time.


  **Average Rating:** 4.5/5.0
  **Total Reviews:** 6


**Seller Details:**

- **Seller:** [InCrowd](https://www.g2.com/sellers/incrowd)
- **Year Founded:** 2010
- **HQ Location:** Watertown, Massachusetts
- **Twitter:** @crowdtalk (4,881 Twitter followers)
- **LinkedIn® Page:** https://www.linkedin.com/company/1774945/ (14 employees on LinkedIn®)

**Reviewer Demographics:**
  - **Company Size:** 33% Enterprise, 33% Mid-Market


### 5. [Pluto Bio](https://www.g2.com/products/pluto-bio/reviews)
  Pluto is a collaborative computational biology platform that empowers scientific teams to manage and analyze data from next-generation sequencing (NGS) and other -omics assays. Pluto offers a modern, biology-focused experience and one-of-a-kind scientific "canvas" that allows you to tell your unique scientific story, with no coding required.


  **Average Rating:** 4.8/5.0
  **Total Reviews:** 14


**Seller Details:**

- **Seller:** [Pluto Bioinformatics](https://www.g2.com/sellers/pluto-bioinformatics)
- **Year Founded:** 2020
- **HQ Location:** Denver, CO
- **Twitter:** @tryplutobio (205 Twitter followers)
- **LinkedIn® Page:** https://www.linkedin.com/company/pluto-biosciences/ (23 employees on LinkedIn®)

**Reviewer Demographics:**
  - **Top Industries:** Biotechnology
  - **Company Size:** 57% Small-Business, 29% Enterprise


#### Pros & Cons

**Pros:**

- Data Analysis (3 reviews)
- Functionality (3 reviews)
- Comprehensive Modules (2 reviews)
- Data Accuracy (2 reviews)
- Ease of Learning (2 reviews)

**Cons:**

- Limited Functionality (1 reviews)
- Poor Documentation (1 reviews)
- Poor Notification System (1 reviews)

### 6. [Elion](https://www.g2.com/products/elion/reviews)
  BioSymetrics' Augusta is a first of its kind software framework and coding language for Biomedical AI/Machine Learning applications that include drug discovery, precision medicine and value based care. Augusta contains over 300 code blocks and an iterative AI core to normalize any biomedical data type including chemistry(compounds), imagery (fMRI etc.) , genetics, EMR systems and more.


  **Average Rating:** 4.3/5.0
  **Total Reviews:** 3


**Seller Details:**

- **Seller:** [BioSymetrics](https://www.g2.com/sellers/biosymetrics)
- **HQ Location:** Boston, US
- **Twitter:** @biosymetrics (220 Twitter followers)
- **LinkedIn® Page:** https://www.linkedin.com/company/biosymetrics (12 employees on LinkedIn®)

**Reviewer Demographics:**
  - **Company Size:** 33% Mid-Market, 33% Enterprise


### 7. [PyRx](https://www.g2.com/products/pyrx/reviews)
  PyRx is a Virtual Screening software for Computational Drug Discovery that can be used to screen libraries of compounds against potential drug targets. PyRx enables Medicinal Chemists to run Virtual Screening from any platform and helps users in every step of this process - from data preparation to job submission and analysis of the results.


  **Average Rating:** 4.5/5.0
  **Total Reviews:** 3


**Seller Details:**

- **Seller:** [sourceforge](https://www.g2.com/sellers/sourceforge)
- **Year Founded:** 1999
- **HQ Location:** San Diego, CA
- **Twitter:** @sourceforge (46,792 Twitter followers)
- **LinkedIn® Page:** https://www.linkedin.com/company/638555/ (67 employees on LinkedIn®)

**Reviewer Demographics:**
  - **Company Size:** 67% Small-Business, 33% Mid-Market


### 8. [AutoDock](https://www.g2.com/products/autodock/reviews)
  AutoDock is a suite of automated docking tools. It is designed to predict how small molecules, such as substrates or drug candidates, bind to a receptor of known 3D structure.


  **Average Rating:** 4.0/5.0
  **Total Reviews:** 2


**Seller Details:**

- **Seller:** [The Scripps Research Institute](https://www.g2.com/sellers/the-scripps-research-institute)
- **Year Founded:** 1993
- **HQ Location:** San Diego, California, United States
- **Twitter:** @ScrippsRTI (4,185 Twitter followers)
- **LinkedIn® Page:** https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-scripps-research-institute (2,239 employees on LinkedIn®)

**Reviewer Demographics:**
  - **Company Size:** 100% Small-Business


### 9. [CDD Vault](https://www.g2.com/products/cdd-vault/reviews)
  CDD Vault is a complete platform for drug discovery informatics, hosted through an intuitive web interface. It helps your project team manage, analyze, and present chemical structures and biological assay data. Activity & Registration \* Electronic Lab Notebook (ELN) \* Visualization \* Inventory \* APIs \* Secure Online Hosting Start your free trial and see first hand how easy it is to manage drug discovery data.


  **Average Rating:** 5.0/5.0
  **Total Reviews:** 2


**Seller Details:**

- **Seller:** [Collaborative Drug Discovery](https://www.g2.com/sellers/collaborative-drug-discovery)
- **Year Founded:** 2004
- **HQ Location:** Burlingame, US
- **Twitter:** @CDDVault (1,800 Twitter followers)
- **LinkedIn® Page:** https://www.linkedin.com/company/collaborative-drug-discovery-inc- (97 employees on LinkedIn®)

**Reviewer Demographics:**
  - **Company Size:** 100% Mid-Market


### 10. [DrugDev Spark](https://www.g2.com/products/drugdev-spark/reviews)
  Cloud based platform with unified apps to optimize workflow processes, site engagement and training for global clinical trials.


  **Average Rating:** 4.3/5.0
  **Total Reviews:** 2


**Seller Details:**

- **Seller:** [DrugDev](https://www.g2.com/sellers/drugdev)
- **Year Founded:** 2008
- **HQ Location:** Durham, US
- **LinkedIn® Page:** https://www.linkedin.com/company/iqvia (78,959 employees on LinkedIn®)

**Reviewer Demographics:**
  - **Company Size:** 100% Small-Business


### 11. [Simulations Plus](https://www.g2.com/products/simulations-plus/reviews)
  Simulations Plus is a modeling and simulation software for pharmaceutical research.


  **Average Rating:** 3.8/5.0
  **Total Reviews:** 2


**Seller Details:**

- **Seller:** [Simulations Plus](https://www.g2.com/sellers/simulations-plus)
- **HQ Location:** N/A
- **Twitter:** @SimulationsPlus (916 Twitter followers)
- **LinkedIn® Page:** https://www.linkedin.com/company/simulations-plus-inc/ (42 employees on LinkedIn®)
- **Ownership:** NASDAQ: SLP

**Reviewer Demographics:**
  - **Company Size:** 50% Small-Business, 50% Enterprise


### 12. [Bruker Drug Development](https://www.g2.com/products/bruker-drug-development/reviews)
  Drug development includes the critical work of verification, elucidation, optimisation, and monitoring needed to take only the most promising molecules "small or large" through from clinic to market.


  **Average Rating:** 4.0/5.0
  **Total Reviews:** 1


**Seller Details:**

- **Seller:** [Bruker](https://www.g2.com/sellers/bruker)
- **Year Founded:** 1960
- **HQ Location:** Billerica, Massachusetts, United States
- **Twitter:** @bruker (16,034 Twitter followers)
- **LinkedIn® Page:** https://www.linkedin.com/company/bruker-corporation (4,753 employees on LinkedIn®)
- **Ownership:** NASDAQ: BRKR

**Reviewer Demographics:**
  - **Company Size:** 100% Enterprise


### 13. [Cortellis](https://www.g2.com/products/cortellis/reviews)
  Cortellis is a suite of intelligence solutions that brings speed and certainty across the development lifecycle. Applying a unique depth, breadth and quality of data that is enriched with deep domain knowledge, industry understanding and therapeutic expertise, Cortellis unlocks hidden insights to drive data-driven decisions that accelerate innovation.


  **Average Rating:** 4.5/5.0
  **Total Reviews:** 1


**Seller Details:**

- **Seller:** [Clarivate](https://www.g2.com/sellers/clarivate)
- **Year Founded:** 2001
- **HQ Location:** London, England
- **Twitter:** @clarivate (20,626 Twitter followers)
- **LinkedIn® Page:** https://www.linkedin.com/company/10950962/ (11,382 employees on LinkedIn®)
- **Ownership:** Clarivate

**Reviewer Demographics:**
  - **Company Size:** 100% Enterprise


### 14. [Open Drug Discovery Toolkit (ODDT)](https://www.g2.com/products/open-drug-discovery-toolkit-oddt/reviews)
  Open Drug Discovery Toolkit (ODDT) is modular and comprehensive toolkit for use in cheminformatics, molecular modeling etc. ODDT is written in Python, and make extensive use of Numpy/Scipy


  **Average Rating:** 4.5/5.0
  **Total Reviews:** 1


**Seller Details:**

- **Seller:** [GitHub](https://www.g2.com/sellers/github)
- **Year Founded:** 2008
- **HQ Location:** San Francisco, CA
- **Twitter:** @github (2,642,101 Twitter followers)
- **LinkedIn® Page:** https://www.linkedin.com/company/1418841/ (6,000 employees on LinkedIn®)

**Reviewer Demographics:**
  - **Company Size:** 100% Small-Business


### 15. [PEPID PDC](https://www.g2.com/products/pepid-pdc/reviews)
  PEPID PDC gives healthcare professionals fast access to authoritative drug information, a comprehensive drug interactions checker, and a complete toxicology reference for safer, more effective care at the patient's bedside.


  **Average Rating:** 3.0/5.0
  **Total Reviews:** 1


**Seller Details:**

- **Seller:** [Pepid](https://www.g2.com/sellers/pepid)
- **Year Founded:** 1994
- **HQ Location:** Phoenix, US
- **Twitter:** @pepid_llc (979 Twitter followers)
- **LinkedIn® Page:** https://www.linkedin.com/company/pepid (42 employees on LinkedIn®)

**Reviewer Demographics:**
  - **Company Size:** 100% Enterprise


### 16. [Schrodinger](https://www.g2.com/products/schrodinger/reviews)
  Data sharing and collaborative drug design across the entire discovery team in real time.


  **Average Rating:** 5.0/5.0
  **Total Reviews:** 1


**Seller Details:**

- **Seller:** [Schrodinger](https://www.g2.com/sellers/schrodinger)
- **Year Founded:** 1990
- **HQ Location:** New York, New York, United States
- **LinkedIn® Page:** https://www.linkedin.com/company/schr-dinger (999 employees on LinkedIn®)
- **Ownership:** NASDAQ: SDGR

**Reviewer Demographics:**
  - **Company Size:** 100% Mid-Market


### 17. [Thermo Scientific Nautilus LIMS](https://www.g2.com/products/thermo-scientific-nautilus-lims/reviews)
  Nautilus LIMS for Dynamic Discovery and R&D Environments is a highly flexible, easily configurable system that increases workflow efficiency, throughput and data reliability while simplifying administration, sample traceability and regulatory compliance.


  **Average Rating:** 4.5/5.0
  **Total Reviews:** 1


**Seller Details:**

- **Seller:** [Thermo Fisher Scientific](https://www.g2.com/sellers/thermo-fisher-scientific)
- **HQ Location:** Waltham, MA
- **Twitter:** @thermosci (23,574 Twitter followers)
- **LinkedIn® Page:** https://www.linkedin.com/company/3081/ (99,414 employees on LinkedIn®)
- **Ownership:** BMV:TMO
- **Total Revenue (USD mm):** $32,218

**Reviewer Demographics:**
  - **Company Size:** 100% Mid-Market


### 18. [A-Alpha Bio](https://www.g2.com/products/a-alpha-bio/reviews)
  Synthetic biotechnology and ML to accelerate drug development, allowing researchers to discover, optimize, and characterize drugs more efficiently.




**Seller Details:**

- **Seller:** [A-Alpha Bio](https://www.g2.com/sellers/a-alpha-bio)
- **LinkedIn® Page:** https://linkedin.com/company/aalphabio



### 19. [Advanced Medicine Partners](https://www.g2.com/products/advanced-medicine-partners/reviews)
  A biotechnology company to accelerate clinical trial design, regulatory affairs, and data management, and streamlines the development process through automation, allowing clients to make informed decisions, reduce costs, and ultimately improve patient outcomes




**Seller Details:**

- **Seller:** [Advanced Medicine Partners](https://www.g2.com/sellers/advanced-medicine-partners)
- **Year Founded:** 2023
- **HQ Location:** Cary, US
- **LinkedIn® Page:** https://linkedin.com/company/ampgtx (55 employees on LinkedIn®)



### 20. [Advera Health](https://www.g2.com/products/advera-health/reviews)
  Advera Health is a healthcare informatics company that uses data-mining and analytics for analysis of drug evidence.




**Seller Details:**

- **Seller:** [Advera Health Analytics](https://www.g2.com/sellers/advera-health-analytics)
- **HQ Location:** Santa Rosa, US
- **Twitter:** @AdveraHealth (1,292 Twitter followers)
- **LinkedIn® Page:** https://www.linkedin.com/company/advera-health-analytics/ (4 employees on LinkedIn®)



### 21. [adWATCH](https://www.g2.com/products/adwatch/reviews)
  adWATCH - AE helps pharmaceutical organizations manage and report adverse events that occur during clinical trials.




**Seller Details:**

- **Seller:** [Atlant Systems](https://www.g2.com/sellers/atlant-systems-ed8c181f-8e3d-4ab1-90b8-2902bd9ce3cf)
- **HQ Location:** N/A
- **LinkedIn® Page:** https://www.linkedin.com/company/llc-atlant-systems/ (2 employees on LinkedIn®)



### 22. [American Gene Technologies](https://www.g2.com/products/american-gene-technologies/reviews)
  American Gene Technologies (AGT) practices the art and science of genetic medicine. AGTrobust programs of discovery and drug development also include efforts on research and development of genetic medicines for treating Parkinsondisease and familial dysautonomia a rare, inherited orphan disease that is characterized by early onset blindness and other neurological problems. As priority programs move toward clinical testing, and as AGT continues to grow, these and other areas of investigation will expand and refine the genetic medicine strategies while advancing toward the clinic alongside other focus areas.




**Seller Details:**

- **Seller:** [American Gene Technologies International](https://www.g2.com/sellers/american-gene-technologies-international)
- **Year Founded:** 2007
- **HQ Location:** Rockville, Maryland, United States
- **LinkedIn® Page:** https://www.linkedin.com/company/american-gene-technologies-international-inc/ (25 employees on LinkedIn®)



### 23. [Aspect Analytics](https://www.g2.com/products/aspect-analytics/reviews)
  Aspect Analytics offers consultancy services, home-grown software, development of workflows, and customization of software.




**Seller Details:**

- **Seller:** [Aspect Analytics](https://www.g2.com/sellers/aspect-analytics)
- **Year Founded:** 2018
- **HQ Location:** Genk, BE
- **LinkedIn® Page:** https://www.linkedin.com/company/aspectanalytics (26 employees on LinkedIn®)



### 24. [Aurora Drug Discovery Software](https://www.g2.com/products/aurora-drug-discovery-software/reviews)
  Aurora employs quantum mechanics, thermodynamics, and an advanced continuous water model for solvation effects to calculate ligand's binding affinities. This approach differs dramatically from scoring functions that are commonly used for binding affinity predictions. By including the entropy and aqueous electrostatic contributions in to the calculations directly, Aurora algorithms produce much more accurate and robust values of binding free energies.




**Seller Details:**

- **Seller:** [Aurora Fine Chemicals](https://www.g2.com/sellers/aurora-fine-chemicals)
- **Year Founded:** 1990
- **HQ Location:** San Diego, US
- **Twitter:** @AuroraChemicals (27 Twitter followers)
- **LinkedIn® Page:** https://www.linkedin.com/company/6671293 (3 employees on LinkedIn®)



### 25. [AutoChrom](https://www.g2.com/products/autochrom/reviews)
  Method development software for the chromatography expert. AutoChrom helps experts develop chromatographic separations using QbD principles. It uses a workflow-based structure to streamline and track a project.




**Seller Details:**

- **Seller:** [ACD/Labs](https://www.g2.com/sellers/acd-labs)
- **Year Founded:** 1994
- **HQ Location:** Toronto, Canada
- **Twitter:** @ACDLabs (1,031 Twitter followers)
- **LinkedIn® Page:** https://www.linkedin.com/company/18480 (208 employees on LinkedIn®)





## Parent Category

[Life Sciences Software](https://www.g2.com/categories/life-sciences)




---

## Buyer Guide

### What You Should Know About Drug Discovery Software

### What is Drug Discovery Software?

Over time, the pharmaceutical and biotechnology world has leveraged electronic data capture (EDC) and laboratory information management solutions to support their research and development efforts. It only makes sense that technology has evolved to provide the same type of process automation, data management, and other kinds of assistance to the drug development lifecycle.

Drug discovery software ensures that all calculations, determinations, and trials are thoroughly completed , without human error, and without potential bias. Drug discovery software also helps researchers, chemists, and scientists scale their efforts via process standardization, storage and duplication of data, accurate candidate identification, and alignment with risk and compliance measures. Drug discovery software significantly cuts down on the time, energy, and resources previously spent in developing new drugs. Drug discovery software makes it possible for scientists to positively impact the management of rising chronic diseases.

Key Benefits of Drug Discovery Software

- Ensures reproducibility of results
- Cuts down on image analysis times
- Increases the quality, relevance, and impact of aggregated data
- Helps pharmaceutical companies to remain competitive in the drug market

### Why Use Drug Discovery Software?

The drug development process has historically been complex, expensive, and time-consuming. That’s not including all the quality management and regulatory aspects that newly developed drugs have to undergo to get to market. Drug discovery software leverages existing technology, for both the benefit of pharmaceutical companies that can make a profit off new drugs and for patients who can now have access to drugs that had not previously existed.

R&D productivity is significantly improved with drug discovery software. Automation is crucial to speeding up the drug development process but it also reduces the margin of human error via machine learning, simulations, and data-mining technology. Additionally, drug discovery software stops researchers from leaning so heavily on chemistry alone. Researchers can now take advantage of all the existing drug, assay, molecular, and protein information out there.

**Time saved —** Technologies and methods like machine learning services and artificial intelligence help scientists parse through massive data sets, which enables the rapid development and launch of new drugs to market. Instead of relying on chemistry alone to approve or deny drug development, scientists and labs can use computers and other computational methods to analyze and generate insight about the drug in development.

**Automation —** Tasks like high-content screening (HCS)—which automates the process to identify the kinds of target cells and ways substances can alter them—and high-throughput screening (HTS)—which sorts through existing compounds to narrow down the number of new drug candidates—used to be incredibly labor-intensive. The time that scientists had to spend waiting for the systems to search through existing drugs to find potential candidates used to be weeks, if not months. With automation, that time is reduced to mere hours. That means that R&D teams can focus more on tweaking and adapting drugs instead of waiting in limbo for approval.

### Who Uses Drug Discovery Software?

Drug discovery software fulfills one particular need: automate (and thereby streamline and speed up) the drug development lifecycle. Accordingly, there is a very specific user demographic of drug discovery software:

**R&D scientists —** Researchers and scientists who work in the pharmaceutical industry and biotechnology laboratories rely on drug discovery software to become more productive, automate time-consuming tasks, and keep track of the work they have done so far in the lab.

**Clinical trial organizers, managers, analysts —** The near-final step of drug discovery is running it through clinical trials. While clinical trial organizers can rely on CTMS to take care of actual trial intricacies, they can depend on drug discovery software to reduce the time spent on screening for drug candidates.

### Drug Discovery Software Features

Drug discovery solutions are constantly coming up with new and improved features, but the following features are fairly typical and standard across the board:

**Prediction —** Automated, predictive formulaic calculations that generate data, identify potential targets, determine interaction and activity predictions, and identify potential defects of developing drugs help speed up the drug discovery process.

**Virtual screening —** Scans and searches through libraries of chemical compounds and molecular structures against drug targets. Some virtual screening modules can be configured to select particular compounds. Virtual screening accelerates the drug discovery process by significantly reducing the potential cost to analyze, detect, and analyze the developing drug’s molecular dynamics and protein ligand structural components.

**Docking —** Predicts the binding affinity between two molecules, which is used during the drug design process. Additionally, regular molecular docking assessments are required for the product’s docking functionality to be as effective and accurate as possible.

**Workflow management —** Efficient and comprehensive workflow tools can speed up pharmaceutical process development. Workflow management features can include better data and information exchange, process standardization, and automation of IT processes.

### Trends Related to Drug Discovery Software

The drug discovery market rises and falls based on levels of chronic diseases, demand for drugs, and advancements in the field of biotechnology. Additionally, expiration of patents, inevitable pathogen resistance, fierce competition between drug manufacturers, and the evolving ability of technology to treat previously untreatable diseases, all lead to the growth of drug discovery solutions.

**Precision medicine —** Data powers precision medicine tactics, with the ultimate goal of leveraging a more holistic view of the individual patient. Precision medicine can bring about bettered targeted therapies because it does away with generalized demographics. Better personalized medicine and therapies also provide scientists with more data that they can use to refine their R&D efforts and fine-tune candidates for any clinical trials.

**Artificial intelligence —** Artificial intelligence (AI) accelerates the discovery and development of new drugs. AI has the power to improve drug affinity predictions, which closes the gap between drug development and inconclusive clinical trial results. The application of AI to the drug discovery process also has the potential to drastically reduce the cost of development.

**Deep learning —** Deep learning technology goes one step further than AI to be able to more effectively process all the information needed to conduct scientific research. Scientists can leverage deep learning to scan through and analyze the thousands of publications and drug databases that must be parsed during the drug development stage, especially during targeting.

### Potential Issues with Drug Discovery Software

**Scale —** Many of the technological innovations and discoveries that have been presented and discussed as positively impacting the drug discovery industry haven’t yet been implemented on a large scale. This poses a few problems, including unknown regulation complications and duplication problems.

**Data management —** Researchers and scientists may become overwhelmed by the sheer amount of data that can be generated once drug discovery processes are automated. While more data equals more context and use cases to refer to, more data also requires effective data management and analysis solutions for scientists to leverage the data.

### Software and Services Related to Drug Discovery Software

[**Clinical trial management**](https://www.g2.com/categories/clinical-trial-management) **—** In order for drugs to get to market, they must undergo and pass clinical trials so that they obtain approval from federal governmental bodies. Clinical trial management software is used by pharmaceutical companies to QA the drugs, track the results of the clinical trials, and manage trial participants.

[**Quality management**](https://www.g2.com/categories/quality-management-qms) **—** Health care-specific quality management software (QMS) helps pharmaceutical companies and regulatory bodies inspect, document, and report on newly developed drugs. By the time new drugs make it to the quality management stage, they’ve usually passed the clinical trial stage, so separate software is required to make sure nothing falls through the gaps before drugs are brought to market.

[**CRM in pharma and biotech**](https://www.g2.com/categories/crm-in-pharma-and-biotech) **—** Between clinical trial volunteers and participants to manage, clinical researchers and experts to consult, and pharmaceutical reps to create relationships with, some sort of contact or chemical database needs to be created, maintained, and consulted. This is where CRM in pharma and biotech software comes into play.

[**Disease management**](https://www.g2.com/categories/disease-management) **—** Disease management software can be used as a reference point for any pharmaceutical company or drug developer before the drug discovery process gets underway. Disease management software maintains and monitors ongoing health conditions via data pulled from aggregate sources, an invaluable resource for those who want to bring an entirely new drug to market and beat out the competition.