Pharmaceutical industry: cost structure development

Hyphenated analytical techniques such as LC-MS, which combines liquid chromatography and mass spectrometry, are well-developed laboratory tools that are widely used in the pharmaceutical industry. Eor some compounds, mass spectrometry alone is insufficient for complete structural elucidation of unknown compounds nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (NMR) can help elucidate the structure of these compounds (see Chapter 20). Traditionally, NMR experiments are performed on more or less pure samples, in which the signals of a single component dominate. Therefore, the structural analysis of individual components of complex mixtures is normally time-consuming and less cost-effective. The... 

The importance of polymorphism in pharmaceuticals cannot be overemphasized. Some crystal structures contain molecules of water or solvents, known as hydrates or solvates, respectively, and they are also called as pseudopolymorphs. Identifying all relevant polymorphs and solvates at an early stage of development for new chemical entities has become a well-accepted concept in pharmaceutical industry. For poorly soluble compounds, understanding their polymorphic behavior is even more important since solubility, crystal shape, dissolution rate, and bioavailability may vary with the polymorphic form. Conversion of a drug substance to a more thermodynamically stable form in the formulation can signiLcantly increase the development cost or even result in product failure. 

Few companies are as dependent upon research as those in the pharmaceutical industry. The development of a new drug is enormously costly, so companies invest heavily in computational approaches to drug design, with the aim of reducing the number of chemicals that need to be screened for therapeutic activity, and thereby shortening the time to market for new drugs. Typically, pharmaceutical companies use structure-based design to address computational questions such as... 

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