Delivering Natural Products and Biotherapeutics to Improve Drug Efficacy

Abstract

Due to the increasing problem of drug resistance, new and improved medicines are required. Natural products and biotherapeutics offer a vast resource for new drugs; however, challenges, including the cost and time taken for traditional drug discovery processes and the subsequent lack of investment from the pharmaceutical industry, are associated with these areas. New techniques are producing compounds with appropriate activity at a faster rate. While the formulation of these combined with drug-delivery systems offers a promising approach for expanding the drug developments available to modern medicine. Here, various classes of drug-delivery systems are described and the advantages they bring to small molecule and biotherapeutic targeting are highlighted. This is an attractive approach to the pharmaceutical industry and the rising trend in research in this area is examined in brief. New medicines are constantly being developed or repurposed, aimed at curing or preventing diseases or conditions where therapeutic product availability is lacking, or to reduce side effects, improve quality of life, reduce the burden on the cost of healthcare systems, while significantly extending patients' lives. However, drug discovery, research and development (R&D) can be an extensive process lasting over 7-10 years, with an average cost of $2.6 billion for each successful drug that reaches the market [1]. These substantial cost and time factors originate from the scientific, technical and regulatory challenges that are needed to fully understand the drug mechanisms of action and physiological interactions for complex diseases at molecular level. Achieving viable commercial success subsequently

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