Drug discovery & clinical trials: Login passwords to new life

Sipra Banerjee 1, *, Kushal Nandi 2, R. Badmanaban 3, Sudip Kumar Mandal 4, Dhrubo Jyoti Sen 5, Kishor Kumar Dholwani 6 and Dhananjoy Saha 7

1 Brainware University, 398‒Ramkrishnapur Road, Barasat, Near Jagadighata Market, Kolkata‒700125, West Bengal, India.
2 Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry, JIS University, 81 Nilgunj Rd, Jagarata Pally, Deshpriya Nagar, Agarpara, Kolkata‒700109, West Bengal, India.
3 Nirmala College of Pharmacy, Muvattupuzha P.O, Ernakulam District, Kerala‒686661, India.
4 Dr. B. C. Roy College of Pharmacy and Allied Health Sciences, Dr. Meghnad Saha Sarani, Bidhan Nagar, Durgapur‒713206, West Bengal, India.
5 School of Pharmacy, Techno India University, Salt Lake City, Sector‒V, EM‒4, Kolkata‒700091, West Bengal, India.
6 Sardar Patel College of Pharmacy, Vidyanagar‒Vadtal Road, Bakrol, Anand, Gujarat‒388 315, India.
7 Department of Technical Education, Bikash Bhavan, Salt Lake City, Kolkata‒700091, West Bengal, India.
 
Review
International Journal of Science and Research Archive, 2022, 07(02), 013–035.
Article DOI: 10.30574/ijsra.2022.7.2.0224
Publication history: 
Received on 24 September 2022; revised on 28 October 2022; accepted on 31 October 2022
 
Abstract: 
In the fields of medicine, biotechnology and pharmacology, drug discovery is the process by which new candidate medications are discovered. Historically, drugs were discovered by identifying the active ingredient from traditional remedies or by serendipitous discovery, as with penicillin. More recently, chemical libraries of synthetic small molecules, natural products or extracts were screened in intact cells or whole organisms to identify substances that had a desirable therapeutic effect in a process known as classical pharmacology. After sequencing of the human genome allowed rapid cloning and synthesis of large quantities of purified proteins, it has become common practice to use high throughput screening of large compounds libraries against isolated biological targets which are hypothesized to be disease‒modifying in a process known as reverse pharmacology. Hits from these screens are then tested in cells and then in animals for efficacy. Depending on product type and development stage, investigators initially enrol volunteers or patients into small pilot studies, and subsequently conduct progressively larger scale comparative studies. Clinical trials can vary in size and cost, and they can involve a single research centre or multiple centres, in one country or in multiple countries. Clinical study design aims to ensure the scientific validity and reproducibility of the results.
Costs for clinical trials can range into the billions of dollars per approved drug. The sponsor may be a governmental organization or a pharmaceutical, biotechnology or medical device company. Certain functions necessary to the trial, such as monitoring and lab work, may be managed by an outsourced partner, such as a contract research organization or a central laboratory. Only 10 percent of all drugs started in human clinical trials become approved drugs.
 
Keywords: 
Drug Discovery; Clinical Trial; Drug Screening; Drug Designing
 
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