Drugs & Medicine

Emma Mackenzie

December 19th 2012

IB 12

DRUGS

A chemical that affects how the body works, for better or works. The word is associates with illegal substances in many countries

Effects on the Body

Alteration of physiological state Alteration of mood, emotions. Alteration of incoming sensory

Examples…

Placebo Effect

Side Effects

Tolerance

Therapeutic Window

Two methods of administering drugs

Oral

Taken by mouth

Tablets, pills, liquids ,

capusules.

ONE

TWO

Inhalation

Vapor breathed in, smoking

Medication of respiratory conditions such as asthma; some drugs of abuse such as nicotine and cocaine

Stages involved in the research, development and testing of the pharmaceutical products

RESEARCH

The research and development of drugs and medicine is a costly process and makes the industry selective in its focus. Usually a new product is isolated and put through clinical pharmacological and laboratory studies to demonstrate its effectiveness. The goal is to develop drugs which are more effective and have fewer toxic side effects than the previously created. Many researchers focus on obesity, depression, cancer, cardiovascular disease, things which are of much importance.

DEVELOPMENT

The first stage in drug development is the identifying and extracting lead compounds. They have low levels of acidity, are often derived from plants, as well as microorganisms. The second stage is testing the effectiveness with chemically related compounds known as analogues; this process is sped up by combinatorial chemistry and high-throughput screening. Then, potential medicine is then tested on animals, which help determine the amount administered to humans.

TESTING

There are three stages in human trials. The effectiveness of a drug is determined by the improvement from those patients who received a real medication compared to those who had the placebo effect. I n phase one 50-100 healthy volunteers are given the drug. In stage two 200- 400 patients are given the drug. And in stage three 3000 + patients, half of the patients are given the drug and the other half a placebo, neither patient nor doctor knows who has which.