Pharmaceutical Education and Practice

Applied pharmaceutical science is a scientific discipline that applies existing scientific knowledge to develop more practical applications, such as technology or inventions. Applied pharmaceutical  science applies the basic science toward practical endeavors. Applied pharmaceutical science is typically engineering, which develops technology. Applied Pharmaceutical Sciences involve in either experimental or theoretical in the following areas:  Pharmaceutics & Biopharmaceutics, Novel &Targeted Drug Delivery, Nanotechnology& Nanomedicine, Pharmaceutical chemistry, Pharmacognosy & Ethnobotany Phytochemistry, Pharmacology & Toxicology, Pharmaceutical Biotechnology & Microbiology, Pharmacy practice & Hospital Pharmacy.

Drug Discovery changes with the change in the dosage forms and the environmental conditions or demand. It involves a wide range of scientific disciplines including biology, chemistry and pharmacology. Drug design involves the design of such molecules that are similar to the bio molecular target site in shape and charge in order to bind to it. The process of bringing a new pharmaceutical drug into the market once a lead compound has been identified through the process of drug discovery is called drug development and the research related to drug development is called drug development research.

The pharmaceutical industry includes the manufacture, extraction, processing, purification and packaging of chemical materials to be used as medications for humans or animals. Pharmaceutical manufacturing is divided into two major stages: the production of the active ingredient or drug (primary processing, or manufacture) and secondary processing .The pharmaceutical Manufacturing is largely driven by scientific discovery and development, in conjunction with toxicological and clinical experience.

Pharmaceutical Development and Technology explores the research in the design, development, manufacture and evaluation of traditional and novel drug delivery systems- emphasizing practical solutions and applications to theoretical and research-based problems. Pharmaceutical products are made by transforming chemical compounds with useful effects on the human body into high-quality dosage forms that can appropriately exhibit effects against diseases. Efficacy and safety are the primary requirements for any pharmaceutical product. However, it is becoming significantly more important to provide pharmaceutical products that can be more easily used by patients, healthcare professionals and caregivers in order to respond to the rapid aging of society and the needs for advanced medical care.

Radiopharmaceuticals are unique medicinal formulations containing radioisotopes which are used in major clinical areas for diagnosis or therapy, many radiopharmaceutical preparations contain radioisotopes with very short half-lives and such preparations therefore have very short shelf-lives and they require an expiry date and time to be indicated. Radiopharmaceutical preparation is a medicinal product in a ready-to-use form suitable for human use that contains a radionuclide. The radionuclide is integral to the medicinal application of the preparation, making it appropriate for one or more diagnostic or therapeutic applications.

Nanotechnology is the science that deals with the processes that occur at molecular level and of nanolength scale size. Nanotechnology provides intelligent systems, devices and materials for better pharmaceutical applications. Pharmaceutical nanotechnology provides two basic types of nanotools, nanomaterials and nanodevices, which play a key role in realm of pharmaceutical nanotechnology and related fields. It is a combination of various fields like biophysics, bioengineering, and molecular biology and their combined disciplines. It has emerged successful in various medical fields.

Novel Drug Delivery System can be a major advance for solving the problems related towards the release of the drug at specific site with specific rate. The need for delivering drugs to patients efficiently and with fewer side effects has prompted pharmaceutical companies to engage in the development of new drug delivery system. The aim of novel drug delivery System is to provide a therapeutic amount of drug to the appropriate site in the body to accomplish promptly and then maintain the desired drug concentration.

Bioavailability means the rate and extent to which the active drug substance or therapeutic moiety is absorbed from a pharmaceutical form and becomes available at the site of action. For drugs intended to exhibit a systemic therapeutic effect, bioavailability can be more simply understood as the rate and extent to which a substance or its therapeutic moiety is delivered from a pharmaceutical form into the general circulation. Bioequivalence focus on the release of a drug substance from a drug product and subsequent absorption into systemic circulation. Bioequivalence studies are a surrogate marker for clinical effectiveness and safety data as it would not normally be practical to repeat clinical studies for generic products.

Clinical research as a component of medical and health research intended to produce valuable knowledge for understanding of human disease, preventing and treating illness and promoting health. Clinical research involves interactions with patients, diagnostic clinical materials or data or populations. Clinical research and its translation into preventive and clinical care. Clinical trials are research investigations in which people volunteer to test new treatments, interventions or tests as a means to prevent, detect, treat or manage various diseases or medical conditions. Clinical trials can also help to improve health care services by raising standards of treatment.

Pharmaceutical analytical techniques deal with the different processes to identify or quantify a substance. The components of a pharmaceutical solution or mixture or the determination of the structures of chemical compounds used in the formulation of pharmaceutical product. These pharmaceuticals may develop impurities at various stages of their development, transportation and storage which makes the pharmaceutical risky to be administered thus they must be detected and quantified. For this analytical instrumentation and methods play an important role. Variety of analytical techniques such as titrimetric, chromatographic, spectroscopic, electrophoretic and electrochemical and their corresponding methods that have been applied in the analysis of pharmaceuticals.

The World Health Organization (WHO) defines pharmacovigilance as the science and activities relating to the detection, evaluation, understanding and prevention of adverse reactions to medicines or any other medicine-related problems. Pharmacovigilance is to protect patients and the public wherever possible and to disseminate knowledge among the relevant professional communities and to patients in order to minimise risk. Pharmacovigilance system or the processes to be engaged in risk management, there is consensus among the major regulators that pharmacovigilance is necessary and important in the development and commercialization of medicinal products.

GMP ensures that quality is built into the organization and processes involved in the manufacture of the products and all those operations should be carried out strictly according to cGMP. Current Good Manufacturing Practices, formal regulations contained in statutes and agency policies and concern the design, monitoring and control of manufacturing processes and facilities. GCP (Good Clinical Practice) is an international ethical and scientific quality standard for the performance of a clinical trial on medicinal products involving humans. GCP includes all aspects of a clinical trials. Regulatory affairs is a comparatively new profession which developed from the desire of governments to protect public health by controlling the safety and efficacy of products in areas including pharmaceuticals, veterinary medicines, medical devices, pesticides, agrochemicals, cosmetics and complementary medicines

Pharmaceutical Packaging can be defined as an economical means of providing presentation, protection, identification information, containment, convenience and compliance for a product during storage, carriage, display and until the product is consumed. Packaging must provide protection against climatic conditions biological, physical and chemical hazards and must be economical. Pharmaceutical marketing is based on product type and geography. The pharmaceutical packaging market is constantly advancing and has experienced annual growth of at least five percent per annum in the past few years as with most other packaged goods, pharmaceuticals need reliable and speedy packaging solutions that deliver a combination of product protection, quality, tamper evidence, patient comfort and security needs.

Management Center Europe reports that mergers of pharmaceutical companies will contribute more than 50 percent of the industry’s future growth in the global markets. By combining their resources, pharmaceutical companies leverage their strengths to increase market share and influence. Investing in technological innovations is a profitable business strategy for a pharmaceutical business. Trends such as increasing competition, globalization and shorter product-cycle times are real challenges for the pharmaceutical industry. An operational marketing and sales strategy is paramount for a pharmaceutical company’s growth and profitability.

Hospital pharmacy is a specialized field of pharmacy that is integrated into the care of a medical center. These include centers such as a hospital, outpatient clinic, drug-dependency facility, poison control center, drug information center of residential care facility. Industrial Pharmacy is a discipline which includes manufacturing, development, marketing and distribution of drug products including quality assurance of these activities. The pharmaceutical industry is an important component of health care systems throughout the world.

Significance of Recent Trends reviews the state of the art and aims to determine the significance of technology and market trends in medicinal chemistry for advancing productivity in drug discovery. Although the fundamental task of medicinal chemists has not changed drastically over time, the chemical and computational tools and perspectives at their disposal have advanced significantly. One in particular, fragment-based drug design, stands out as promising major improvements in research productivity. We examine medicinal chemistry-related approaches and methodologies that drug discovery organizations employ in an effort to increase productivity in early drug discovery and decrease attrition at later pipeline stages. Key topics considered include structure-based drug design, fragment-based drug design, natural products-based drug design, diversity-oriented synthesis, and chemogenomics. An overall assessment of the current and potential value of these approaches is presented. Various flavors of computer-aided drug design are also considered, as the complexity and limitations of drug discovery programs that are based on biochemical screens of large compound collections have been major factors in stimulating the growth of this modality.

Process chemistry involves the manufacturing of active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) and key intermediates require long sequence of chemical reactions and large quantities of solvents. Production of hazardous waste as side products in these processes, poses a great threat to the environment. Therefore, the R&D’s are focusing on developing faster, cheaper, efficient and more environmentally friendly processes.

• Development of more efficient catalysts
• Developing new process technologies by using Micro reactors, Nano-encapsulation
• Exploration of various techniques for the preparation of Chiral drugs
• Developing green technologies for the manufacture of APIs and intermediates

Patient recruitment and up-front enrollment planning are critical to drug development programs. Patient recruitment, if not adequately planned for, can extend your development timeline by a number of years. Retention of patients throughout the life of a clinical trial is essential in order to have complete data sets for your analysis and subsequent filings. In order to optimize both, you have to have a plan and it should take into account all stakeholders from senior management at the sponsor company and the CRO partners, to the sites and investigators and study volunteers. Cambridge Healthtech Institute’s Tenth Annual Enrollment Planning and Patient Recruitment conference will cover the topics one should consider when drafting and strategically implementing a patient recruitment plan for a clinical development program. 

Pharmaceutical Manufacturing is the procedure of Pharmaceutical Drugs by pharmaceutical manufacturing companies. It is under constant pressure to fast-track innovation and increase the speed at which they introduce successful drugs to market. The days of big pharmaceutical companies owning many manufacturing plants are slowly ending, and every company, no matter what size, is looking for ways to lessen costs to survive in an increasingly tough and unpredictable economic climate.

Computers are now a days utilized in pharmaceutical industries, hospitals and in various sectors for the knowledge about Drug, education, evaluation, analysis, medication history and for maintenance of the monetary records. They have become indispensable within the event of clinical pharmacy, hospital pharmacy and pharmaceutical research. Computers are also useful for patient profile medication, monitoring, management and material management. It is useful in providing the drug information services, drug interactions and patient counselling.

Pharmacology is that the science of drugs and their effect on living systems. In medicine cabinets, once you visit the dentists and once you take any sort of medication. Pharmacology is additionally liable for painkillers, caffeine drinks and antibiotics. it's the science of what's happening to your body and to the drug itself.