What are the Pharmaceutical Sciences?

Pharmaceutical sciences are a wide range of… Alainia to fix.

Drug Discovery & Design

Drug Discovery and Design deals with the design and synthesis of new drug molecules. This Category Includes specialized fields of study such as medicinal chemistry, combinatorial chemistry, structural biology, identification of biological targets, and assay development to test drug candidates.

Drug Delivery

Drug Delivery is concerned with the design of dosage forms — such as tablets, injections or patches — that will deliver the drug to the site of action in a patient. The purpose is to ensure that the drug arrives in the right concentration and at the right time. Specialty fields within Drug Delivery include pharmaceutics, biomaterials, and pharmacokinetics.

Drug Action

Drug Action examines how the drug itself actually works in a living system, which is the definition of pharmacology. The action of the drug can be studied at the molecular level, in a cell, an organ, and in animals. Specialty fields within Drug Action include molecular biology, pharmacology, pharmacodynamics, toxicology, and biochemistry. Pharmaceutics, biomaterials, and pharmacokinetics.

Clinical Sciences

Clinical Sciences are concerned with the use of drugs in the treatment of diseases. Particular properties of new drugs — such as efficacy, adverse effects, drug-to-drug interaction, bioavailability — are determined in clinical trials in humans.

Cost Effectiveness of Medicine

Cost Effectiveness of Medicines (Pharmacoeconomics) examines the economic impact of using one drug rather than others, with regard to costs for the drug itself, patient management (e.g., physician visits, hospitalization), adherence and quality of life.

Drug Analysis

Drug Analysis involves separating, identifying, and quantifying the components of a sample. Analytical chemistry is an important component of all areas of the pharmaceutical sciences.

Regulatory Affairs

Regulatory Affairs promotes communication, understanding, and cooperation between scientists from industry and academia and the regulatory authorities worldwide who govern approval and distribution, by means of developing regulatory guidelines.

More and more, these categories are beginning to overlap. For example, a scientific engineer working in Drug Delivery needs to understand how toxicology affects Drug Action, and a chemist working in Drug Discovery and Design must know about the pharmacokinetics of Drug Delivery. For this reason, pharmaceutical scientists are required to have a broad base of knowledge in a variety of sciences.