Pharmacology is a branch of medicine, biology and pharmaceutical sciences concerned with drug or medication action, where a drug may be defined as any artificial, natural, or endogenous molecule which exerts a biochemical or physiological effect on the cell, tissue, organ, or organism. More specifically, it is the study of the interactions that occur between a living organism and chemicals that affect normal or abnormal biochemical function. If substances have medicinal properties, they are considered pharmaceuticals.
The pharmaceutical industry discovers, develops, produces, and markets drugs or pharmaceutical drugs for use as medications to be administered to patients, with the aim to cure them, vaccinate them, or alleviate symptoms. Pharmaceutical companies may deal in generic or brand medications and medical devices. They are subject to a variety of laws and regulations that govern the patenting, testing, safety, efficacy using drug testing and marketing of drugs. The global pharmaceuticals market produced treatments worth $1,228.45 billion in 2020 and showed a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 1.8%.
Labcorp Drug Development is a contract research organization (CRO) headquartered in Burlington, North Carolina, providing nonclinical, preclinical, clinical and commercialization services to pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries. Formerly called Covance, the company is part of Labcorp, which employs more than 70,000 people worldwide. Labcorp Drug Development claims to provide the world's largest central laboratory network. Labcorp Drug Development has been met by fierce activism from animal rights leaders including Jane Goodall for its animal testing procedures.
In drug development, preclinical development, also termed preclinical studies or nonclinical studies, is a stage of research that begins before clinical trials and during which important feasibility, iterative testing and drug safety data are collected, typically in laboratory animals.
Dr. Reddy's Laboratories is an Indian multinational pharmaceutical company located in Hyderabad, Telangana, India. The company was founded by Kallam Anji Reddy, who previously worked in the mentor institute Indian Drugs and Pharmaceuticals Limited. Dr. Reddy's manufactures and markets a wide range of pharmaceuticals in India and overseas. The company has over 190 medications, 60 active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) for drug manufacture, diagnostic kits, critical care, and biotechnology
Biocon Limited is an Indian biopharmaceutical company that is based in Bangalore, India. It was founded by Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw in 1978. The company manufactures generic active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) that are sold in approximately 120 countries, including the United States and Europe. It also manufactures novel biologics as well as biosimilar insulins and antibodies, which are sold in India as branded formulations. Biocon's biosimilar products are also sold in both bulk and formulation forms in several emerging markets. Syngene International Limited (Syngene) is a publicly listed subsidiary of Biocon, operating in the contract research services space.
In the life sciences, a contract research organization (CRO) is a company that provides support to the pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and medical device industries in the form of research services outsourced on a contract basis. A CRO may provide such services as biopharmaceutical development, biologic assay development, commercialization, clinical development, clinical trials management, pharmacovigilance, outcomes research, and Real world evidence.
The pharmaceutical industry is one of the leading industries in the People's Republic of China, covering synthetic chemicals and drugs, prepared Chinese medicines, medical devices, apparatus and instruments, hygiene materials, packing materials, and pharmaceutical machinery. China has the second-largest pharmaceutical market in the world as of 2017 which is worth US$110 billion. China accounts for 20% of the world's population but only a small fraction of the global drug market. China's changing health-care environment is designed to extend basic health insurance to a larger portion of the population and give individuals greater access to products and services. Following the period of change, the pharmaceutical industry is expected to continue its expansion.
Drug development is the process of bringing a new pharmaceutical drug to the market once a lead compound has been identified through the process of drug discovery. It includes preclinical research on microorganisms and animals, filing for regulatory status, such as via the United States Food and Drug Administration for an investigational new drug to initiate clinical trials on humans, and may include the step of obtaining regulatory approval with a new drug application to market the drug. The entire process – from concept through preclinical testing in the laboratory to clinical trial development, including Phase I–III trials – to approved vaccine or drug typically takes more than a decade.
In the experimental (non-clinical) research arena, good laboratory practice or GLP is a quality system of management controls for research laboratories and organizations to ensure the uniformity, consistency, reliability, reproducibility, quality, and integrity of products in development for human or animal health through non-clinical safety tests; from physio-chemical properties through acute to chronic toxicity tests.
ViroPharma Incorporated was a pharmaceutical company that developed and sold drugs that addressed serious diseases treated by physician specialists and in hospital settings. The company focused on product development activities on viruses and human disease, including those caused by cytomegalovirus (CMV) and hepatitis C virus (HCV) infections. It was purchased by Shire in 2013, with Shire paying around $4.2 billion for the company in a deal that was finalized in January 2014. ViroPharma was a member of the NASDAQ Biotechnology Index and the S&P 600.
In chemistry, fine chemicals are complex, single, pure chemical substances, produced in limited quantities in multipurpose plants by multistep batch chemical or biotechnological processes. They are described by exacting specifications, used for further processing within the chemical industry and sold for more than $10/kg. The class of fine chemicals is subdivided either on the basis of the added value, or the type of business transaction, namely standard or exclusive products.
Chrysin, also called 5,7-dihydroxyflavone, is a flavone found in honey, propolis, the passion flowers, Passiflora caerulea and Passiflora incarnata, and in Oroxylum indicum. It is extracted from various plants, such as the blue passion flower. Following oral intake by humans, chrysin has low bioavailability and rapid excretion. It is under basic research to evaluate its safety and potential biological effects.
IQVIA, formerly Quintiles and IMS Health, Inc., is an American multinational company serving the combined industries of health information technology and clinical research. IQVIA is a provider of biopharmaceutical development and commercial outsourcing services, focused primarily on Phase I-IV clinical trials and associated laboratory and analytical services, including consulting services. It has a network of more than 88,000 employees in more than 100 countries and a market capitalization of $49 Billion as of August 2021. As of 2017, IQVIA was reported to be one of the world's largest contract research organizations.
Genedata is a Swiss-headquartered bioinformatics company that provides enterprise software that support large-scale, experimental processes in life science research. The company focuses on automating data-rich, highly complex data workflows in biopharmaceutical R&D. It continuously develops and markets interoperable software that together comprises the Genedata Biopharma Platform.
A contract manufacturing organization (CMO), more recently referred to as a contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO) to avoid the acronym confusion of Chief Medical Officer or Clinical Monitoring Organization in the pharma industry, is a company that serves other companies in the pharmaceutical industry on a contract basis to provide comprehensive services from drug development through drug manufacturing. This allows major pharmaceutical companies to outsource those aspects of the business, which can help with scalability or can allow the major company to focus on drug discovery and drug marketing instead.
The National Institute for Pharmaceutical Technology and Education (NIPTE) is a non-profit scientific and research and development organization that was established in 2005 and incorporated in June 2007 in the State of Indiana. Its offices are currently located in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
AMRI is a contract research and manufacturing organization that provides drug discovery, development, cGMP manufacturing and aseptic fill and finish to the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries. Founded in 1991, AMRI operates in the United States, Europe and Asia, with its headquarters located in Albany, New York. AMRI has announced deals and collaborations with such companies as Pfizer Inc., Merck & Co., Eli Lilly and Co., Takeda, Genentech, Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. and GE.
Ionis Pharmaceuticals, Inc. is a biotechnology company based in Carlsbad, California, that specializes in discovering and developing RNA-targeted therapeutics. The company has 3 commercially approved medicines: Spinraza (Nusinersen), Tegsedi (Inotersen), and Waylivra (Volanesorsen) and has 4 drugs in pivotal studies: tominersen for Huntington’s disease, tofersen for SOD1-ALS, AKCEA-APO(a)-LRx for cardiovascular disease, and AKCEA-TTR-LRx for all forms of TTR amyloidosis.
GenScript Biotech Corporation is a global biotechnology group, founded in New Jersey, United States in 2002, by Dr. Fangliang (Frank) Zhang, and listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in 2015. Currently, the rotating CEO of GenScript is Dr. Zhenyu Liu., GenScript operates in over 100 countries and regions worldwide, with legal entities located in the US, China, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, the Netherlands, and Ireland. GenScript provides products and services to over 100,000 customers.,
