Abstracto

Prodrugs as Emerging Tool for Increasing Safety Profile of Existing Drugs

Redasani VK

The process of drug discovery is never ending, time consuming and expensive one. With the openings of high throughput screening and computer aided techniques; even though various drugs are identifying but the final outcome is very less. When a new chemical entity has some barrier/limitation to utility, it may not be developed as a therapeutic agent. This fact is attributed to the undesirable physico-chemical properties of the existing drug molecule. The steady improvement in the physicochemical, biopharmaceutical and/or pharmacokinetic properties of pharmacologically active compounds is due implementation of a prodrug strategy. Thus prodrug designing leads to raising the therapeutic effectiveness of medicinal compound through derivatization. Even though numerous prodrugs have been designed and developed but safety of promoiety is always the great concern. The acceptance of prodrug is dependent on proper selection of promoiety. A wide variety of promoieties have been used to overcome liabilities associated with drugs. The selection of promoiety depends on the purpose of the prodrug, type of functional groups available on the parent drug, chemical and enzymatic conversion mechanisms of prodrug to parent drug, safety of the promoiety, and ease of manufacturing.