Role of pharmaceutical sciences in future drug discovery

There is no author summary for this article yet. Authors can add summaries to their articles on ScienceOpen to make them more accessible to a non-specialist audience.

Abstract

The recent emergence of COVID-19 influenced the layman’s knowledge of drugs. Although several drugs have been discovered serendipitously, research has moved to the next-generation era of drug discovery. The use of drugs is inevitable and they have become lifesavers in the present era. Although research from different scientific backgrounds has supported the translational research of drug discovery, the prime role of pharmacy has to be remembered. Here we have summarized the role of some important subjects in pharmacy education, which have paved different ways in drug discovery and development.

Lay abstract

Despite existing therapies for various ailments, emerging diseases or disorders need more selective treatments. Traditionally ‘pharmacy’ is thought of as a medical store, but time has changed pharmacy into a multidisciplinary subject with core research domains, including pharmacognosy, pharmaceutical biotechnology, pharmaceutical analysis, pharmaceutical chemistry, pharmacology and pharmaceutics. The main objective of these subjects is to provide strong support for both basic and translational research. Here we summarize the role of each of these domains of pharmaceutical science in the design and development of pharmaceuticals.

Tweetable abstract

How pharmacy’s core research domains provide strong support for both basic and translational drug discovery research.

Related collections

Most cited references 45

Record: found
Abstract: found
Article: not found

Natural Products as Sources of New Drugs over the Nearly Four Decades from 01/1981 to 09/2019

David J Newman, Gordon M. Cragg (2020)

This review is an updated and expanded version of the five prior reviews that were published in this journal in 1997, 2003, 2007, 2012, and 2016. For all approved therapeutic agents, the time frame has been extended to cover the almost 39 years from the first of January 1981 to the 30th of September 2019 for all diseases worldwide and from ∼1946 (earliest so far identified) to the 30th of September 2019 for all approved antitumor drugs worldwide. As in earlier reviews, only the first approval of any drug is counted, irrespective of how many "biosimilars" or added approvals were subsequently identified. As in the 2012 and 2016 reviews, we have continued to utilize our secondary subdivision of a "natural product mimic", or "NM", to join the original primary divisions, and the designation "natural product botanical", or "NB", to cover those botanical "defined mixtures" now recognized as drug entities by the FDA (and similar organizations). From the data presented in this review, the utilization of natural products and/or synthetic variations using their novel structures, in order to discover and develop the final drug entity, is still alive and well. For example, in the area of cancer, over the time frame from 1946 to 1980, of the 75 small molecules, 40, or 53.3%, are N or ND. In the 1981 to date time frame the equivalent figures for the N* compounds of the 185 small molecules are 62, or 33.5%, though to these can be added the 58 S* and S*/NMs, bringing the figure to 64.9%. In other areas, the influence of natural product structures is quite marked with, as expected from prior information, the anti-infective area being dependent on natural products and their structures, though as can be seen in the review there are still disease areas (shown in Table 2) for which there are no drugs derived from natural products. Although combinatorial chemistry techniques have succeeded as methods of optimizing structures and have been used very successfully in the optimization of many recently approved agents, we are still able to identify only two de novo combinatorial compounds (one of which is a little speculative) approved as drugs in this 39-year time frame, though there is also one drug that was developed using the "fragment-binding methodology" and approved in 2012. We have also added a discussion of candidate drug entities currently in clinical trials as "warheads" and some very interesting preliminary reports on sources of novel antibiotics from Nature due to the absolute requirement for new agents to combat plasmid-borne resistance genes now in the general populace. We continue to draw the attention of readers to the recognition that a significant number of natural product drugs/leads are actually produced by microbes and/or microbial interactions with the "host from whence it was isolated"; thus we consider that this area of natural product research should be expanded significantly.

0 comments Cited 1068 times – based on 0 reviews      Review now

Bookmark

Record: found
Abstract: found
Article: not found

The re-emergence of natural products for drug discovery in the genomics era.

Alan L Harvey, RuAngelie Edrada-Ebel, Ronald J Quinn (2015)

Natural products have been a rich source of compounds for drug discovery. However, their use has diminished in the past two decades, in part because of technical barriers to screening natural products in high-throughput assays against molecular targets. Here, we review strategies for natural product screening that harness the recent technical advances that have reduced these barriers. We also assess the use of genomic and metabolomic approaches to augment traditional methods of studying natural products, and highlight recent examples of natural products in antimicrobial drug discovery and as inhibitors of protein-protein interactions. The growing appreciation of functional assays and phenotypic screens may further contribute to a revival of interest in natural products for drug discovery.

0 comments Cited 355 times – based on 0 reviews      Review now

Bookmark

Record: found
Abstract: found
Article: not found

Microbial drug discovery: 80 years of progress

Arnold Demain, Sergio Sánchez (2009)

Microbes have made a phenomenal contribution to the health and well-being of people throughout the world. In addition to producing many primary metabolites, such as amino acids, vitamins and nucleotides, they are capable of making secondary metabolites, which constitute half of the pharmaceuticals on the market today and provide agriculture with many essential products. This review centers on these beneficial secondary metabolites, the discovery of which goes back 80 years to the time when penicillin was discovered by Alexander Fleming.

0 comments Cited 207 times – based on 0 reviews      Review now

Bookmark

All references

Author and article information

Journal

Journal ID (publisher-id): FDD

Title: Future Drug Discovery

Abbreviated Title: Future Drug. Discov.

Abbreviated Title: Future Drug Discovery

Publisher: Newlands Press Ltd (London, UK )

ISSN (Electronic): 2631-3316

Publication date (Electronic, pub): 18 October 2021

Publication date (Print, pub): September 2021

Volume: 3

Issue: 3

Electronic Location Identifier: FDD64

Affiliations

¹Institute National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale, Centre de Recherche des Cordeliers, Equipe-Immunopathologie et Immunointervention Thérapeutique, Sorbonne Université, Université de Paris, Paris, F-75006, France

²Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry, Faculty of Pharmacy & Health Sciences, University Kuala Lumpur Royal College of Medicine Perak, Ipoh, 30450, Perak, Malaysia

³Department of Pharmaceutical Biotechnology, Andhra University College of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Andhra University, Visakhapatnam, 530003, Andhra Pradesh, India

⁴Molecular Imaging Branch, National Institute of Mental Health, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20892, USA

⁵Department of Pharmaceutical Analysis, Andhra University College of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Andhra University, Visakhapatnam, 530003, Andhra Pradesh, India

⁶Department of Cancer Biology & Pharmacology, University of Illinois College of Medicine at Peoria, 1 Illini Dr, Peoria, IL 61605, USA

⁷Department of Pharmacology, KVSR Siddhartha College of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Vijayawada, 520010, Andhra Pradesh, India

⁸Department of Pharmaceutics, Bapatla College of Pharmacy, Bapatla, Guntur, 522101, Andhra Pradesh, India

⁹House of the Provinces of France, Paris, 75014, France

Author notes

[* ]Author for correspondence: bsrpharmacy90@ 123456gmail.com

Author information

Srinivasa Reddy Bonam https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2888-2418

Mahendran Sekar https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3022-6137

Girija S Guntuku https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0491-5377

Sridhar G Nerella https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0132-9516

Siva R Challa https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0487-2757

Gopala KMT Eswara https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4389-5567

Sivamma Mettu https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8017-0522

Article

DOI: 10.4155/fdd-2021-0005

SO-VID: 4e1460e2-f4a8-4f1f-af29-6e19e90bfb28

License:

This work is licensed under the Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 Unported License

History

Date received : 28 June 2021

Date accepted : 20 September 2021

Date: 18 October 2021

Page count

Pages: 15

Funding

Funded by: Ministry of Higher Education, Malaysia

Award ID: FRGS/1/2018/SKK10/UNIKL/02/1

Role of pharmaceutical sciences in future drug discovery

Read this article at

Abstract

Lay abstract

Tweetable abstract

Related collections

Novel Coronavirus Disease COVID-19

Most cited references 45

Natural Products as Sources of New Drugs over the Nearly Four Decades from 01/1981 to 09/2019

The re-emergence of natural products for drug discovery in the genomics era.

Microbial drug discovery: 80 years of progress

Author and article information

Journal

Affiliations

Author notes

Author information

Article

History

Page count

Funding

Categories

Comments

Comment on this article

Similar content 113

Most referenced authors 401