The successful use of chemotherapy in the treatment of several diseases has been one of the great drug
development stories of the last century. Motivated by this, we present here an overview of the various steps
required to develop a new drug treatment. An introductory view of the field of medicinal chemistry is provided as
an example to a broad discipline that has successfully designed procedures that are routinely used for drug
development. A detailed view of the subfield of bioinorganic medicinal chemistry is then presented which
describes the research and development involved in the design of new metal-based drugs. A specific example of
the development of the CASIOPEINAS® family compounds, a set of copper based molecules is used to illustrate
the wide range of strict scientific procedures involved from initial design to the final registration of the drug.
Keywords: Medicinal chemistry, chemotherapy, drug design, drug develop, drug testing, bioinorganic chemistry,
metal compounds, copper compounds, antineoplastic, casiopeinas®.
