Book excerpt: The first authoritative overview of past and current strategies for successful drug development by analog generation, this unique resource spans all important drug classes and all major therapeutic fields, including histamine antagonists, ACE inhibitors, beta blockers, opioids, quinolone antibiotics, steroids and anticancer platinum compounds. Of the 19 analog classes presented in detail, 9 are described by the scientists who discoverd them. The book includes a table of the most successful drug analogs as based on the IMS ranking and compares them in terms of chemical structure, mode of action and patentability.