Lipitor was most likely discovered by screening a library of billions of compounds for ones with some bioactivity. Then, by putting these compounds through more

Lipitor was most likely discovered by screening a library of billions of compounds for ones with some bioactivity. Then, by putting these compounds through more refined screenings, they have a bunch of candidate compounds. Then, these candidate compounds go through many, very expensive rounds of clinical testing to establish safety and efficacy. In the process, the structure of the molecule undergoes many tweaks, again, which are often not 'rationally designed', but tried en masse and screened for activity/metabolism. The Lipitor patent is, in fact, exactly the opposite of what you're trying to convey here. There is zero 'idea' behind Lipitor, just massive amounts of screening.