Pharmaceutical manufacturing is a complex process and requires for a lot of time. The intricacy of the Pharmaceutical Manufacturing process is the reason why medicines are so costly. Unlike other products, it requires a lot of research and testing before a drug is actually produced and considered safe for human use. It may take years to manufacture a single drug for a single disease. Sometimes even after years of research, a cure for certain diseases are not found.
As Pharmaceutical manufacturing is not similar to other commodities such as textile or electronics, it involves very careful systems and processes before a medicines is actually produced. Pharmaceutical companies spend endless money on the research phases for the development of drugs.
Pharmaceutical manufacturing involves drug discovery. It implies the course of discovering and designing. Many medicines were discovered by isolating the active ingredient from traditional cures or by serendipitous discovery. However, this was the approach in the past. In the present times, modern biotechnology focuses on comprehending the metabolic pathways pertinent to an ailment. It is interesting to note that many early-stage drug discoveries have been done in the universities or research institutes.
Another process in pharmaceutical manufacturing is drug development. It involves a number of tasks required to determine a drug as suitable as a drug. The main aim of these phases is to establish right formulation and dosage of a drug other than verifying its safety. Many times big pharmaceutical companies exhibit vertical integration, taking part in a wide assortment of drug discovery and development as well as manufacturing and quality control.
The marketing, sales, and distribution of drugs are also involved in this. On the other hand, the smaller pharmaceutical firms focus on a particular aspect like discovering drug candidates etc. For pharmaceutical manufacturing purpose, research organizations and big pharmaceutical firms get involved in joint ventures to discover the probable of new medicine substances.
Pharmaceutical manufacturing is extremely costly and even then a very few compounds are actually approved by the authorities for use by human beings. For approval purpose, a lot of investment in pre-clinical development and clinical trials is required.
Most drugs which are not approved invite huge costs while they give no profits. If we consider the amount of the failed medicines, the amount of developing a new drug which is successful is gauged at about 1 billion USD.
