Is making drugs a part of pharmacology?

Question

If not then which field of study encompasses the synthesis of drugs? I want to work for a drug company such as pFitzer to create and test drugs, which university is the best at teaching such things?

Answer 1

No. A pharmacologist studies the EFFECTS of drugs. A pharmacist focuses on the preparation and distribution of drugs.

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Answer 2

Yes.

Medicine development and safety testing

Development of medication is a vital concern to medicine, but also has strong economical and political implications. To protect the consumer and prevent abuse, many governments regulate the manufacture, sale, and administration of medication. In the United States, the main body that regulates pharmaceuticals is the Food and Drug Administration and they enforce standards set by the United States Pharmacopoeia. In the European Union, the main body that regulates pharmaceuticals is the EMEA and they enforce standards set by the European Pharmacopoeia.

If the structure of a medicine is altered slightly, this will slightly alter the medicine's properties. This means when a useful activity has been identified, chemists will make many similar compounds called analogues, to attempt and maximise the beneficial effects. This development phase can take up to 3 years and is expensive.[3]

These new analogues need to be developed. It needs to be determined how safe the medicine is for human consumption, its stability in the human body and the best form for dispensing, like tablet or aerosol. After extensive testing, which can take up to 6 years the new medicine is ready for marketing.[3]

As a result of the long time required to develop analogues and test a new medicine and the fact that of every 5000 potential new medicines typically only one will ever reach the open market, this is an expensive way of doing things, costing millions of dollars. To recoup this outlay pharmaceutical companies may do a number of things:[3]

    * Carefully research the demand for their potential new product before spending an outlay of company funds.[3]

    * Obtain a patent on the new medicine preventing other companies from producing that medicine for a certain allocation of time.

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