Drug industry, structure

UNODC and World Bank, Afghanistan s drug industry Structure, functioning, dynamics, and implications for counter-narcotics policy. Kabul UNODC and World Bank, 2006, p. 30. 

It is estimated that far more than 50% of the published chemical literature concerns heterocyclic structures. One striking structural feature inherent to heterocycles, which continues to be exploited to great advantage by the drug industry, lies in their ability to manifest substituents around a core scaffold in a defined three-dimensional representation, thereby allowing for far fewer degrees of conformational freedom than the corresponding conceivable acyclic structures. 

The major current successes of the industry - blockbuster drugs for hypertension, cholesterol, depression, ulcers, and so on - are the results of research done decades ago, under the "old" binary Industry structure (Cockburn 2004). Thus, today s new drugs are the product of yesterday s R D spending and today s R D spending will contribute to output far in the future. 

DiMasi, J. New Drug Innovation and Pharmaceutical Industry Structure Trends in the Output of Pharmaceutical Firms. Drug Information Journal 34 (2000) 1169-94. 

As a consequence the pharmaceutical industry has developed a more or less uniform way of profiling drug-like structures in ADME and toxicity assays to filter them prior to administration to human volunteers or patients. A generic view of the strategies as currently used in the pharmaceutical industry for toxicity testing and ADME screening are depicted in Figures 19.1 and 19.2. 

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