Natural products drug discovery: accelerating the clinical candidate development using reverse pharmacology approaches.

Author: Patwardhan B, Vaidya AD.
Affiliation: Interdisciplinary School of Health Sciences, University of Pune, Pune 411 007, India. bhushan@unipune.ernet.in
Conference/Journal: Indian J Exp Biol.
Date published: 2010 Mar
Other: Volume ID: 48 , Issue ID: 3 , Pages: 220-7 , Word Count: 103


The pharmaceutical industry is facing serious challenges as the drug discovery process is becoming extremely expensive, riskier and critically inefficient. A significant shift from single to multi targeted drugs especially for polygenic syndromes is being witnessed. Strategic options based on natural product drug discovery, ethnopharmacology and traditional medicines are re-emerging to offer good base as an attractive discovery engine. Approaches based on reverse pharmacology may offer efficient development platforms for herbal formulations. Relevant case studies from India and other countries where such approaches have expedited the drug discovery and development process by reducing time and economizing investments with better safety are discussed.

PMID: 21046974