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Abstract: The development of therapeutics is the
result of an evolution process inherently in motion
right from early time. Starting with plants, minerals
and metals in crude form, the process of evolution led
to ever improving innovations such as development of
traditional remedies, isolation and elucidation of
active constituents, modification of structure or
molecular modeling for better efficacy, reduced toxicity
and specificity of action, rational drug design by
targeting cellular, sub-cellular receptors and enzymes
and latest we have therapeutics resulting out of
combinatorial chemistry, synthetic oligonucleotides
through DNA technology and polymerase chain reaction.
While any agent thought to be of medicinal value was
tried directly on ailing human beings, pre-clinical
testing on laboratory animals started with the start of
scientific era and ever improving advances have been
made both at preclinical and clinical levels for
evaluation of new drug molecules. Recent advances in
therapeutics are in the areas of gene therapy, stem cell
and nanomedicine. As the society advances, requirement
for effective and safe therapeutics rises. Government’s
awareness of effective and safe therapeutics as a social
need and big financial gain which a pharmaceutical
company makes with the introduction of new drugs are the
motivating factors contributing to keeping the process
of evolution of therapeutics in motion.
Introduction
The process of evolution for therapeutic remedies
started right from the time of early man. On falling
ill, the only course of remedial measure he could think
of was to try flora and fauna growing around him.
Through hit and trial method, plants of medicinal values
came to be recognized. This knowledge accumulated, got
compiled under different treatises and practiced under
different systems of medicine. With the start of
scientific era, scientific knowledge gained came to be
applied on medicinal plants for the isolation of active
constituents, their structure elucidation &
formulations. As a result, about 120 drugs derived from
90 medicinal plants have come to us from plant source.
With the advances made in science & simultaneously in
technologies, process of generation of semi-synthetic
and synthetic drugs started. From mid of 20th century,
this process got accelerated due to financial motivation
which the marketing of a new drug provided and due to
national governments coming forward to support medical
research for development of effective remedies as a
social need. Further, as the societies grew affluent
over the period, the need for more and more effective
and safe remedies grew providing impetus for developing
new innovative approaches in the process of finding new
remedies. Thus the evolutionary process of developing
the therapeutics continues to be in motion as an all
time process. Presented below is a short review of this
process.
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