Drug Design—A Rational Approach

In the past few decades there has been a hiatus in the momentum of research and discovery of ‘novel’ medicinal compounds. This particular trend in drug development perhaps is augmented due to two vital factors, namely : first, strict empirical and rational approach to drug design ; and secondly, high standards of safety and therapeutic efficacy together with tremendous increased costs of research and development and finally the clinical trials. ‘Drug design’ or ‘tailor-made compound’ aims at developing a drug with high degree of chemotherapeutic index and specific action. It is a logical effort to design a drug on as much a rational basis as possible thus reducing to the minimum the trial and error approach. It essentially involves the study of biodynamics of a drug besides the interaction between drug molecules and molecules composing the biological objects. Drug design seeks to explain : (a) 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.