PET imaging has made spectacular progress over the last decade. It has benefited from multiple technological improvements, and from substantial advances in the science of drug discovery. As the pharmaceutical industry becomes a significant player in this research field, the pace of discovery of new clinical imaging tracers accelerates, providing clinicians with better tools for all phases of drug development.  This trend goes in parallel with an increased acceptance of molecular imaging techniques, both to support decisions in drug discovery and the interpretation of clinical trial results. Most major pharmaceutical companies have now acquired some experience in PET imaging, addressing clinical questions related to drug distribution, target occupancy, or therapeutic efficacy. We will discuss a few such examples.Obviously, and as expected from a field in rapid development, numerous challenges as well as many opportunities remain. Some technological limitations are beyond the scope of medicinal chemistry, while others relate to the need to rapidly identify tracer candidates with adequate properties, and radiolabel them efficiently.  For historical and practical reasons, there was so far a strong focus towards the development of tracers for psychiatric and neurological diseases. In contrast, oncology, a large consumer of clinical imaging information, largely relies on established tracers with limited potential for addressing questions at the molecular level. The development of new tracers beyond CNS and classical tumor detection remains an area of future growth for molecular imaging. This will deliver novel clinical tools to facilitate the development of innovative drugs, to bring them faster to patients with high medical needs.

PET imaging for pharmaceutical research: Still so much to discover

248th National Meeting (2014)

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