[Rosalind F Jeanne]

I am taking a medicinal chemistry course, and we have a term paper on which we need to pick a drug and wrote things like bioassay, lead compound, lead modification, pharmacodynamics/kinetics, prodrugs, and things like that. At the moment I chose Zolpidem, but I just can't find information about the lead compound and lead modification...everything else is pretty much readily available. I have tried several drugs, and I couldn't find any of the lead. Is it the problem of my searching skill? I'm using the SciFinder. Thank you folx. Easy-to-write drugs recommendation is also welcomed!

[rolnor]

Its not easy, you need to back-track publications during many years, for this scifinder or reaxys could be helpful.
If you search the drug and find the chemists that have done chemistry on this you can search on these scientists and get some publications.

[Babcock_Hall]

https://www.aacpdm.org/UserFiles/file/IC34-D.pdf

On a lark I did a quick google search by simply combining the name of your drug and the word "history," and I found the above link.  It is tangential to your topic , but you might find it of interest.  It has some case histories of patients.

I would try PubMed along with the other search tools mentioned.