Editor's Note: This article is based on a presentation given by Dr. Du Yunlong, CEO and CMO of Beijing Pucci PharmaTech, at the "WuXi PharmaTech From Target Discovery to Clinical Research" forum.

Small molecules have constantly brought about medical breakthroughs and solutions to various medical needs, having saved countless lives. Small molecules play a crucial role in biological study as a chemical probe, and help understanding disease biology. In the past century, traditional small molecule drugs had been remaining predominance in drug research. Nevertheless, new types (like proteolytic targeting chimera (PROTAC) and RNA targeted small molecules (RSM)) and biological methods (such as antibody-based therapy and cell and gene therapy) have been added into the drug discovery kit.