What are drugs and pharmaceutical drugs?
Drugs are chemical substances that alters the function of an organism, while pharmaceutical drugs are used to treat, cure, prevent and diagnose a disease or promote well-being.
How old is the pharmaceutical industry?
80 Years
How many pharmaceutical companies and substances are there, and how much are they worth?
10000 and 5000, 400 billion USD
What year was penicillin created industrially produced?
1940
What is considered a blockbuster drug?
A blockbuster drug is a drug generating more than 1 billion in revenue for the company per year
What are 5 pharmaceutical companies in Singapore?
GSK, Pfizer, Abbvie, AstraZeneca, Johnson and Johnson
What are 3 ways modern pharmaceuticals are obtained?
Molecular optimization, computer modeling and genetic engineering
What is molecular optimization?
It is based on changing the chemical structures of existing molecules
What is computer modeling?
Computer modeling is using computers to design new drugs based on the knowledge of a biological target with the aid of computers.
What is genetic engineering?
Genetic engineering is an experimental technique that uses genes to treat or prevent diseases, suc has gene therapy.
What is the rate at which drugs are succesfully approved by the FDA to become marketable?
1 or 2 every 10000
What is an Investigational New Drug Application (IND)?
IND is a request for authorization from the FDA to administer an investigational drug or biological product to humans.
What are the 5 steps in a New Drug development process
Drug discovery, selection of potential drug candidate, patenting, pre-clinical testing, clinical trials
What are the 4 ways of drug discovery?
Knowledge-based, rational drug design, computer modeling and high-throughput screening (HTS)
What are the 2 types of preformulation studies, and explain them
Fundamental preformulation properties are specific to the drug molecule and dependent on the chemical structure.
Derived preformulation are based are carried out to learn about issues related to the development of the dosage form by characterizing the particle properties in different forms.
What is a clinical trial?
A clinical trial is a research study conducted to investigate a new drug compound in humans which consists of 4 phases
What is Phase I of clinical trials?
Phase 1 is to determine whether a drug is safe for use in humans, which takes about 3-6 months and needs 20-100 healthy human volunteers
What is phase II of clinical trials?
Phase II is to explore the therapeutic efficacy of the drug and any side effects. It also helps to determine the dosage for phase III trials. It takes around 0.5-2 years, and needs hundreds of participants
What is phase III of clinical trials?
It is done to confirm the therapeutic efficacy of the drug and to monitor any side effects from long-term usage. It is around 1-5 years and needs thousands of patients.
What is phase IV of clinical trials?
They are known as post-marketing studies, incase there are any risks missed in the earlier phases as the data is collected from a wider community
What is the average cost for a new prescription drug?
2.6 billion dollars
