Research is an evolutionary process and being complicated, time-consuming and costly one whose end result is never known at the outset. Discovering a new drug has been likened to searching for the proverbial needle in a haystack. In test tube experiments called assays, compounds are added one at a time to enzymes, cell cultures or cellular substances grown in a laboratory. In the search for a new cholesterol drug, scientists found a fungus that inhibited the HMG-CoA reductase enzyme in a test tube. Chemists then had to identify which of the fungus' dozens of chemical by-products was actually inhibiting the enzyme. Once that was done, the chemical's structure was analysed and improved on to enhance its effects. Research has aimed at discovering what a drug does to the body. If a drug's active ingredients don't get into the blood, it won't work. In research one has to know when to cut losses if one goes down a wrong way. The role of FDA in the early stages of drug research is little. FDA first becomes involved when a drug company has completed its testing in animals and is ready to test a drug on humans. Drug research is a long, difficult and costly road certainly.