Medicinal and Pharmaceutical Chemistry

The study of drugs, and drug development is referred to as Pharmaceutical chemistry. This include Drug design, discovery, delivery, Efficacy, Safety, absorption, metabolism etc. Pharmaceutical Chemistry constitutes of major elements such as Biomedical analysis, Pharmacology, Pharmacokinetics, and Pharmacodynamics. Pharmaceutical chemists play a major role in the development and assessment of therapeutic compounds.

Drug design is the inventive process of finding new drugs by design, depending on their biological targets. It is also known as a rational drug design. Drug discovery is an effort to develop a new drug molecule by applying varieties of methodologies of design. This procedure includes the identification of candidates, Synthesis, Characterization, Screening and assays. Drug development is the process of manufacturing and marketing the biologically active compound by drug design by observing the pharmacokinetic, toxicological and clinical parameters.

Pharmacokinetic is the quantitative analysis of drug movement in, through and out of the body. Intensity of effect is related to concertation of the drug at the site of action, which depends on its pharmacokinetic properties. Pharmacokinetics also includes the study of the time course of drug absorption, distribution, metabolism, and excretion.

Pharmacodynamics is the study of physiological and biological effect of drugs and also correlation between drug concentration at the site of action and the resulting effect, including the time course and potency of therapeutic and adverse effects. The effect of a drug present at the site of achievement is determined by that drug’s binding with a receptor. Receptors may be present on neurons in the central nervous system to depress pain sensation, on cardiac muscle to affect the intensity of contraction, or even within bacteria to disrupt maintenance of the bacterial cell wall.

Computer-aided drug design is a most recent, exceptionally viable strategy which utilizes computational chemistry to determine, study the drugs and related biologically active components. There is a constantly growing effort to employ computational power to the combined chemical and biological space to rationalize drug discovery, design, development and optimization. It is an inventive process of finding new medications based on the knowledge of a biological target. Molecular mechanics and Quantum mechanics are the two methods involved in computer-aided drug design.

Nanomedicine is the interdisciplinary field of science, medicinal application of a Nanotechnology, which includes diagnosing, treating and preventing disease and traumatic injury, relieving pain and preserving and improving human health using molecular tools and molecular knowledge of the human body. It deals with the structure ranging from 1nm to 100nm.It has a wide range of application in medical fields like drug delivery, Cancer treatment, Imaging, Sensing, Blood purification, Tissue engineering and Medical devices.

Modified drug delivery systems are developed to balance the apparent absorption and to alter the site of release of drugs, to achieve specific clinical objectives that cannot be attained with conventional dosage forms. The main objective for modifying oral drug release is to alter the rate of drug input in the intestinal lumen to achieve a predetermined plasma profile.

Targeted cancer therapies are drugs or other medicinal substances which blocks the growth and spread of cancer by interrupting with the specific molecules called molecular targets which are involved in the growth, progression and spread of cancer. Therefore, development of novel-tumor specific ligand or pharmaceutical nanocarriers is highly desirable. Anti-cancer drugs are also called Anti neoplastic-agents or Chemotherapeutic-agents. Targeted delivery of drugs to tumors represents a significant advance in Cancer diagnosis and therapy and uses information about a person’s genes and proteins to prevent, diagnose and treat disease.

Pharmaceutical analytical techniques explain the process or different processes to identify and quantify a substance, the components of a pharmaceutical solution or mixture or the determination of the structures of chemical compounds used in manufacturing of the pharmaceutical product. The components monitored include process impurities, chiral or achiral drugs, residual solvents, degradation products, excipients such as preservatives, extractable and leachable from container and closure or manufacturing process, pesticide in drug product from plant origin, and metabolites.

Drug delivery is the method of administering a pharmaceutical compound to develop a therapeutic effect in humans or animals. It is integrated concept with dosage form and route of administration. Nasal and pulmonary routes of drug delivery techniques are gaining importance for the treatment of human diseases. These methods are concerned with the drug release profile, absorption, distribution and elimination for the advancement of the product viability and safety and patient convenience and compliance. To lower the drug degradation and loss, to increase drug bioavailability and to prevent harmful side-effects various drug delivery and drug targeting techniques are currently under development.

Clinical pharmacy is a field which deals with the medication and patient care. Promotes health, wellness and disease treatment. It consists of all the services like pharmacists practicing in nursing homes, community pharmacies, hospitals, home-based care services, clinics and any other setting wherever medicines are prescribed and used.

Hospital Pharmacies are the component of the pharmaceutical care management in hospitals, which describes the procedures in which medicines are selected, obtained, delivered, prescribed, administered and reviewed to optimize the contribution of those medicines.
Hospital pharmacies usually store a large range of medications, including more specialized and investigational medications. 

Current trends in Medicinal Pharma efforts are moving towards the more targeted approach and this is being revolutionized and enhanced by genomics and proteomics. Target identification and validation are the first key stages in this process. It involves demonstration of relevance and confirmation of target protein in a disease which can then be translated to animal models and this may involve the latest in expression techniques and gene targeting. Advances in Pharmaceutical Technology covers the principles, methods and technologies that the pharmaceutical industry uses to turn that candidate molecule into final drug form: optimizing the therapeutic performance of the molecule which includes designing, characterizing, testing the drug in clinical trials, and manufacturing the final product. 

Pharmacology and toxicology are related disciplines in the field of biomedical science. Pharmacology is the study of the positive effects that medicinal drugs have on living organisms to help in the treatment of disease, while toxicology is the study of the negative effects of medicinal drugs have on living organisms, the knowledge of which assists in the advancement of environmental health. Route of exposure, Dosage, species, age, sex, and environment are the important factors that influences the toxicity.

Pharmacology is the study of the action and uses of drug. Pharmacology which categorizes pharmacology as the study of the source, properties, physiological action, absorption, excretion and therapeutic use of drugs. Where a drug can be broadly defined as any man-made, natural, or endogenous molecule which exerts a biochemical or physiological effect on the cell, tissue, organ, or organism. Clinical application of drugs or its use in actual medical practice is referred as applied pharmacology.

An emerging field in the industry is Cosmeceuticals relates pharmaceutical drugs and traditional cosmetic products and knowing the advances in the field and knowledge of Skin Biology and Pharmacology facilitated the development of Pharma in cosmetics. The sources in pharmaceuticals are starches and they make a variety of contributions. This includes from binder to sweeteners (sugarless) thereby resulting in products as disparate as toothpaste, tablets, emulsions, lotions, liquid medicines and creams. Starch is also used quite extensively in healthcare products, cosmetic and make up. These are hybrid products which purportedly enhance beauty by utilizing ingredients by beneficially interacting with our body's biological functions.

Physical Properties of a Drug molecule helps in understanding the relationship between drug's properties and therapeutic actions. It also leads to the formation of targeted product. Many biological process which are complicated can be modelled using the techniques of physical chemistry. Often carries both the lead identification and lead optimization phases of a drug discovery program forward.

Pharmaceutical Marketing is defined as the business of promoting or advertising the sale of Pharmaceutical drugs.  It is also referred as Pharma marketing or medico-marketing. Pharmaceutical Marketing helps to Raise Awareness About Treatments for Chronic Diseases. The prime contributing factors to be considered in Pharma marketing are growing risks, phrase raising costs, changing consumer needs and tightening regulations, globally. World Health Organization states that Pharmaceuticals represented a US$300 bn-a-year market globally as of 2015.