Introduction
This report reveals how natural products have been of value to the pharmaceutical industry and yet how relatively little of their potential has been explored. It assesses strategies for exploring their continued potential and examines the therapeutic areas in which natural products may offer the greatest benefit. The report also profiles specialist companies.
Features and benefits
* Understand how small a fraction of natural products has been explored for pharmaceutical potential.
* Understand how natural products offer access to underexploited but biologically relevant regions of chemical space
* Identify in which therapeutic areas the exploration of natural products offers better prospects of success.
* Gain insight into the different approaches used for the exploitation of natural products and understand the influence of past successes and failures.
* Assess the value of specialist companies as possible partners or service providers.
Highlights
Natural products have been the source of most classes of antibacterial drugs, a field where target-driven medicinal chemistry programs have proved highly unsuccessful. Natural products have also been the source of, or inspiration for, the majority of older anticancer drugs.
Natural products often have highly novel, albeit complex, chemical structures that have evolved to support biological activity. They thus represent potentially valuable chemical leads in the development of drugs.
Very large numbers of microbial strains and marine natural products have yet to be identified, or explored for their potential therapeutic utility. Nonetheless, the sole pursuit of the development of natural products as therapeutic agents is a risky strategy for a company.
Your key questions answered
* How do natural products offer value in the development of new drugs?
* Who could provide a useful partner in trying to exploit natural product resources?
* What therapeutic areas offer better prospects for commercially exploiting natural product derived therapeutics?
* How do natural products offer scope for innovation in developing new drugs?
* What are the potential problems in trying to exploit natural products?
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