Medicinal Chemistry

Drug Development 

1) Determination of the need for a drug

• Is there are a market, are there already treatments? 

2) Finding the structure 

• Spectroscopy, analysis and robotics can be used to test compounds

3) Drug Synthesis 

• Time consumption, length, yield
• Chemists looks for ways to increase yield and reduce stages 

4) Extraction of final product 

• The drug must be extracted from the mixture, and purified 

Antiviral Medications

Ways in which viruses differ from bacteria: 

• Posess no classic cell structure (organelles, cell wall etc)
• Much smaller than bacteria 
• Need a living host cell to reproduce 
• …