Introduction: Drug Design, and Development

Drug design seeks to explain:
 Effects of biological compounds on the basis of molecular interaction in
terms of molecular structures or precisely the physico-chemical
properties of the molecules involved.
 Various processes by which the drugs usually produce their
pharmacological effects.
 How the drugs specifically react with the protoplasm to elicit a
particular pharmacological response.
 How the drugs usually get modified or detoxicated, metabolized or
eliminated by the organism.
 Probable relationship between biological activities with chemical
structure.

The ‘drug design’ in a broader sense implies random evaluation of synthetic as
well as natural products in bioassay systems, creation of newer drug molecules
based on biologically-active-prototypes derived from either plant or animal
kingdom, synthesis of congeners displaying interesting biological actions, the
basic concept of isosterism and bioisosterism, and finally precise design of a
drug to enable it to interact with a receptor site efficaciously.