Pharmaceutical Research efforts

Usually, desmopressin is administered intranasally by use of sprays or drops. This administration route of desmopressin was considered to be more efficacious than the oral route, because bypassing the gastrointestinal tract increases the absolute bioavailability from less than 1% to approximately 5%. However, nasal application of desmopressin is accompanied by high intersubject and intrasubject variability in plasma pharmacokinetics [215]. Therefore, there have been several pharmaceutical research efforts to improve nasal delivery of desmopressin. 

The number of known cytokines, as well as the diversity of biological functions, have led to a very complex and often confusing picture of the immunologic and nonimmunologic processes involved. The role of cytokiaes in local or systemic homeostatic mechanisms related to physiological functions may be utilized therapeutically for treatment of cancer and a variety of other diseases (2). Pharmaceutical research and development efforts surrounding lL-1 are typical examples of the cytokine inhibition approach to chronic inflammation research (2). 

The search for an effective non-peptide oxytocin antagonist has become a major goal of a number of pharmaceutical companies because of the poor pharmacokinetic properties and especially the lack of oral bioavailability associated with peptidic antagonists. Early research in this field was dominated by Merck, but in recent years significant research efforts at GlaxoSmithKline and Serono have been published. A number of other companies, notably Sanofi-Aventis, Yamanouchi and Wyeth, have had a major presence in vasopressin receptor research and oxytocin is frequently included in patent claims for the molecules. Occasionally, oxytocin-selective compounds have been reported, usually derived by adaptation of the vasopressin antagonist template. 

Certainly biomolecular NMR is not the single method which is important for hit identification in pharmaceutical research. It is always a combination of techniques and a team effort that leads to a successful drug. This can involve biologists (basic understanding, assay development, bio-informatics), chemists (both bench chemists and modelers), screening specialists (HTS/natural products) and spectroscopists (X-ray, optical methods, surface plasmon resonance, NMR). 

Bacterial resistance to conventional antibiotics has become a serious problem in infection control, and has led to intensive research efforts to develop an effective novel antimicrobial agent. Antimicrobial peptides have already played a crucial role in pharmaceutical research as biomedically useful agents or as lead compounds for drug development. More specifically, cyclic peptides have shown some potential as a possible new class of... 

Although the development segment of pharmaceutical research has a lesser scientific component than the discovery phase, it remains a substantial undertaking that absorbs more than half of total industry research budgets. Cockburn and Henderson (2001, p. 6) report that the relative cost of development efforts has accounted for between 60% and 70% of pharmaceutical research activities since 1970. The costs of this work are largely determined by FDA requirements. 

Berndt, Cockburn, and Grepin (2005) employ the number of medical indications to measure pharmaceutical innovation. A substantial share of industry research and development expenditures, estimated at between 25% and 30% (p. 45), is directed toward finding new indications for existing products. Berndt et al. use the term incremental innovation to describe these efforts. For the three therapeutic areas they examined, the number of FDA approvals for new indications increased substantially in the past decade (p. 27). In addition, the greater number of approved indications has led to increased utilizations of the drugs concerned (p. 41). On that basis, they maintain that reported declines in pharmaceutical research productivity are overstated. 

Of course, the pharmaceutical industry is not the only sector in which process engineering is needed to enhance national security and homeland defense. Also, other areas of process engineering such as model development, optimization schemes, on-line control, catalyst development, new separation methods, biomass conversion, and models using multiple length scales are equally important to include in research efforts. 

---