After 2 decades doing industry science, Roger Tung decided to take a break. For a year and a half, he played the role of “Mr. Mom” and independent consultant by day, while contemplating what to do next between the hours of 10 P.M. and 3 A.M. He wanted to come up with something big—something that could reduce the risks and costs that are rampant in the “expensive and failure-prone” business of drug discovery and development, he says.
It was during one of these late-night brainstorming sessions in 2005 that Tung suddenly remembered deuterium—a heavier form of hydrogen he had learned about as a graduate student. Deuterium forms much stronger bonds with carbon than hydrogen does, which can impact a drug’s absorption, distribution, and metabolic properties. Replacing hydrogen atoms with deuterium in existing therapeutic compounds, he thought, might boost their safety or efficacy. And because the shape and size of deuterium ...
