BMC3104 - Drug Discovery and Development

Leader: Dr David Chalmers

Offered

Parkville Second semester 2008 (Day)

Synopsis

This unit will go through the processes whereby new drugs are discovered and developed, from inital ideas through to full clincal use in man. It will also illustrate the interphase between the biosciences and pharmaceutical business.

The 6 specific topics for this unit are:

1. ) Natural products as sources for new chemical entities and drug discovery.

2. )Design and synthesis of enriched libraries using combichem.

3. ) Lead development.

4. ) Reactions and processes and their progressive transfer to larger scale.

5. ) Polymorphism in the pharmaceutical industry.

6. ) Intellectual Property

Objectives

At the completion of this unit the students will have knowledge of the;

1. Major approaches to drug discovery

2. Significance and contribution of natural products to new pharmaceuticals

3. Combinatorial chemistry approaches in drug discovery

4. Specifications and evaluation of drug-like molecules, biological aspects

5. Clinical evaluation of drugs

6. Methods and techniques of producing high quality products

7. Regulatory requirements for drugs

8. Legal documentation of pharmaceutical product invention

9. Considerations required for scaling up of chemical processes

Assessment

3 hour examination (80%)

Practical Work (20%)