GSK have an automated system for retrieving any of the millions of compounds in their chemical archive
Broadcaster: BBC2
Year: 2010
Genre: Factual, Documentary
http://bobnational.net/record/250371
An hour-long episode of the BBC’s flagship science series Horizon about the development of pharmaceutical drugs. The programme looks at prescription medicines and also at non-prescription use of drugs such as Ritalin and Modafinil for cognitive enhancement (Warning: the episode involves footage demonstrating the best-known physiological effect of Viagra).
I have used a 3 minute clip from this episode which demonstrated the robot used by GlaxoSmithKline to access the archive of over 2 million chemical compounds which get screened to try and find a lead compound to interact with a new target. Just a handful will make it through to tests in humans.
Biology on the Box 