Pharmaceutical industry anticancer drugs

A range of legal drugs is sold by the pharmaceutical industry to treat illnesses of the nervous system. Advances in our understanding of the structure and function of the nervous system has accelerated the development of chemicals for treating diseases such as Parkinson s syndrome, Alzheimer s disease, and mild depression. The treatment of mild depression with drugs like Prozac is a billion dollar industry. On the other hand, some drugs may produce undesirable nervous system side effects that can limit their utility in disease treatment. The anticancer... 

Despite its seeming benefit to individual patients, pharmacogenetics has not been widely embraced by the pharmaceutical industry. Certainly pharmacogenetic principles were applied in the development of the anticancer drugs Herceptin and... 

Rate of development of anticancer drugs by the national cancer institute and the U.S. pharmaceutical industry and the impact of regulation. In Final Report for the National Cancer Institute, University of Rochester Medical Center New York, 1981 40. 

Zubrod, C.G. Schepartz, S. Leiten, J. Endicott, K.M. Carrese, L.M. Baker, C.E. Cancer Chemotherapy Reports October 1996, 50 (7) DHEW Washington, DC, 1968. Rate of Development of Anticancer Drugs by the National Cancer Institute and the U.S. Pharmaceutical Industry and the Impact of Regulation. Final Report for the National Cancer Institute University of Rochester Medical Center New York, 1981 40. 

Paclitaxel (Taxol, NSC-125973), obtained from Taxus species, is a diterpene with intense antitumoral activity because of its tmique mode of action on the microtubular cell system. It is one of the most successful anticancer drugs developed in the past 50 years. Due to several difficulties associated with obtaining Taxol and related taxoids firom plants growing in nature, plant cell cultures are considered to be the most favorable and environmentally sustainable approach for its production of at an industrial level. Some pharmaceutical companies, such as the... 

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