"Synthetic route" would be a better description than "platform." Nevertheless, this is a long, complicated synthetic procedure. It may be simpler than others,

"Synthetic route" would be a better description than "platform." Nevertheless, this is a long, complicated synthetic procedure. It may be simpler than others, but it's much more elaborate than the approaches to many other drugs. At the end of the day, you end up with a molecule whose pharmacological properties may be very far removed from what you're looking for. These are big, highly functionalized molecules - in other words far from ideal drug candidates. As others have noted, the biggest hurdles in drug development come late in the process. That's when, after spending hundreds of millions of dollars on Phase 1 and Phase 2 studies, a company finally figures out if they have a drug or not. Drug development is most decidedly a "waterfall" process. There is no such thing as Agile Drug Discovery, and this paper doesn't really move the goalposts on that front.