Serendipity and VZV drug discovery

The discovery of drugs by chance (serendipity) has lead to the development of extremely important drugs in different fields, such as antibiotics, antitumoral and antipsychotic agents to name only a few examples. Recently, serendipity led to the discovery of a new category of compounds extremely active versus chickenpox-shingles (VZV) infections. The lead compound has been further developed and currently has successfully finished phase II clinical trials.