&gt;I don&#x27;t think there are specific guidelines as to when you start calling something a candidate<p>True, that&#x27;s why I said &quot;at our company&quot;.  It differs everywhere, as you mention.  My only point was that we screen thousands of compounds, and it&#x27;s only after a compound has shown desirable activity, safety, ADME, PKPD, etc, that it becomes a real &quot;candidate&quot;.  Not everyone realizes this, and thinks you can synthesize a compound and the next step is to file an IND.<p>Your point about CROs is a good one, and I thought of it after my post.  We use lots of CROs, too.  And there are obviously lots of successful virtual companies that don&#x27;t do any wet-work at all.  But CROs cost lots of money.  Not really cheaper than doing it yourself, just more convenient sometimes.  Virtual companies can work because they have millions in VC.<p>Anyway good luck with your endeavor.  I don&#x27;t mean to sound cynical or negative, but not everyone in IT realizes that the two fields are qualitatively different in many ways and I think the differences are worth pointing out since they&#x27;re often overlooked around here...