>>Your suggestion that it could be "unclear who conducted the phase 3" is very strange--the FDA knows who filed the application
This means the drug has gone through the actual drug development lifecycle- Terrence is not talking about this.
>Acetaminophen is among the oldest and most commonly used synthetic drugs, and its mechanism is still debated
You answered your confusion; it's an extremely old drug (1950s) and back then we didn't really know anything about pathway targeting. The drugs that we have developed in the recent decades (post 2000s); we generally start from the target; the same story that i wrote in the main comment - so we do know about the mechanisms and the pathways that are targetted, down to the genetic level sometimes.
So if a new drug showed up on the market today which actually has gone through the above lifecycle; we could with a minimal effort put together 5-6 scientists and get a consensus on how the drug is actually working.
No pharmaceutical is testing drugs today which have no scientific theory or reasoning or seminal papers behind it.
This means the drug has gone through the actual drug development lifecycle- Terrence is not talking about this.
>Acetaminophen is among the oldest and most commonly used synthetic drugs, and its mechanism is still debated
You answered your confusion; it's an extremely old drug (1950s) and back then we didn't really know anything about pathway targeting. The drugs that we have developed in the recent decades (post 2000s); we generally start from the target; the same story that i wrote in the main comment - so we do know about the mechanisms and the pathways that are targetted, down to the genetic level sometimes.
So if a new drug showed up on the market today which actually has gone through the above lifecycle; we could with a minimal effort put together 5-6 scientists and get a consensus on how the drug is actually working.
No pharmaceutical is testing drugs today which have no scientific theory or reasoning or seminal papers behind it.