Drug Discovery and Drug Development: Process, Steps, and Penicillin Case Study

DRUG DISCOVERY AND DRUG
DEVELOPMENT

ABSTRACT
Drug discovery and development is the long process being adapted by the researcher to
find out particular medicine that could be used to treat the patient so that they could have better
health. Discovery & Development, Preclinical Research, clinical Development, FDA review and
post market monitoring are five steps that are mainly involved in drug discovery and
development process. Furthermore, it can be stated that the penicillin was major medical
breakthrough and was first effective antibiotic that could be used to kill the bacteria. Thus, this
contribute in curing the serious illnesses were possible even if the patient is being suffering from
any type of the diseases. The discovery of penicillin drug has been done by Alexander Fleming
in 1928 by accidently, so antibiotic is word that is being used to describe the penicillin.
The study has presented crucial information related to background of the diseases, target,
drug on the market and the manner in which it can be effectively treated. Furthermore, it has
analyses, evaluate and interlink each individual step in the process of discovery and development
of the penicillin drug. At last depicted the overall key finding related to the objective of the study
and future improvement that could helps in development of drug.

TABLE OF CONTENTS
ABSTRACT.....................................................................................................................................2
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................4
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................6
Analysis, evaluating and interlink between individual step related to process of discovery and
development of relevant drug......................................................................................................6
CONCLUSION AND FUTURE DIRECTION.............................................................................12
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................14

INTRODUCTION
Drug discovery is the process through which the new candidate medication are
discovered, it involve key steps such as discovery and development, preclinical research, clinical
development, FDA review and post market monitoring. In another words, it is process that
involves potential development of new medicines through wide range of disciplines, chemistry,
biology and pharmacology. This is process that aim at “identifying the compound therapeutically
useful in curing and treating diseases”. Several stages followed in development of drug
contributed in making the medicine more safe, effective for being used for treatment of people.
All regulatory requirement need to be followed by the researcher while developing the drug in
order to avoid any complication in future scenario. Since many years, people make use of
different plant and mineral to treat illnesses, therefore there are various ingredients that are being
utilised to make a specific medicine (Dugger, Platt and Goldstein, 2018). Medicine are chemical
or compound that are mainly used to prevent diseases, ease symptoms and helps in diagnosis of
illnesses. With changes in trends and development of technology, there has been advancement in
the method that are used to cure patient and save their life. there are varieties of sources through
which the medicine come, likewise, there are some that mix together number of chemicals, for
example penicillin. In addition to this, introducing a new drug with a market is too complex and
time-consuming process such as it is estimated that on an average $2.6 billion and 10 years needs
to be incurred by the organisation to introduce the drugs.
Such as, for the long time the remedies are being on trial-and-error method and are being
confused about the ideas that could be work effectively to treat the patient. Over 1500 and 1600,
people Europe started making use of Opium through milky sap from the poppy plant and treat
pain. So, Laudanum is mixture of opium, herb and alcohol that contribute people in saving from
pain, coughing, insomnia and diarrhoea. In Europe, there are many type of diseases but few
medicine that really did anything so Laudanum was used to treat all problem starting from cold
to Black Plague (Ghosh and et.al., 2020). But unfortunately, it lead in becoming more addictive,
as more and more people has started in taking medicine to get cured. Then, the scientist has get
knowledge related to chemistry and biology which lead in development of pharmaceutical
medicine by 1804 by Friedrich Serturner, a German scientist. But the serturner that has been
used as medicine across worldwide in hospital has become addiction to its own drug thus people
are being warned to make careful use of it.