Week 2 Post 2

The path of an idea about a disease that needs a cure, to a drug available on the market is long and complex. There are two approaches that are mainly used. The first is Target Based Drug Discovery, which takes a protein to target that is chosen by Molecular biologists which is important to a disease and how it works.then after testing 10,000s to over a million molecules for their ability to bind to the protein and other factors like how well it can move through a cell or how well it can be patented. you then have a lead, which you test on animals to test toxicity. Then, the FDA will approve it if everything is correct, which is permission to begin clinical trials on humans. Clinical trials are done in three phases: phase 1 is a small group of healthy volunteers only to test the drugs toxicity and safety, phase 2 is done on a bigger group of patients with the disease mainly to test dosage, efficacy, and safety, and phase 3 done on an even bigger group of people to test the drugs effect on a broader population like ethnic groups, age groups, and people with other health problems. If all goes well, it is sent to the FDA again and they will approve it for the market. This is the more popular approach as molecular biology improves. This can take 10 years fro m the animal testing stage to final FDA approval.

Drug Discovery- From Concept to Market gave great insight to how drugs are discovered and the time and money required to have a drug tested and approved. The drug industry is an industry and is about business as much as it is science. The government has recognized this and has a good balance of keeping the public safe and encouraging new drugs through patents and the FDA. Due to patents however, the prices of new drugs can be incredibly high as that companies product is the only one for sale and those who need it must pay for it.


Comments

  1. Ms. DunleySeptember 12, 2017 at 5:56 AM

    What animal testing is done first?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. UnknownSeptember 17, 2017 at 12:02 PM

      Common animal used for testing include mice, fish, rats, rabbits, hamsters, farm animals, birds, and more. the further along in animal testing, you get to more human-like animals, like non human primates.

      Delete

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