ABSTRACT
The International Collaborative Biodiversity Group (ICBG) Program was created out of a desire to provide a mechanism to put the principles and requirements of the Rio Treaty into effective practice. In spite of the success of the natural products approach to drug discovery, a number of concerns must be addressed in implementing a successful drug discovery program. Ideally, a successful drug discovery program would provide a means of realizing at least a small part of the value of the ecosystem within the market system, and this leads to the next consideration. The ethical and legal aspects of the natural product drug discovery process have recently undergone a profound and long overdue change. In summary, the ICBG program provides a unique mechanism for combining the skills and resources of several different institutions to address the common goals of biodiversity conservation, economic development, and drug discovery.
