Technological innovations have become the impetus for continuous developments in medical research. With the assistance of new technologies, effective drug delivery techniques have been improved for optimal patient care. Recent Advances in Drug Delivery Technology is a pivotal reference source for the latest scholarly research on the application of pharmaceutical technology to optimize techniques for drug delivery in patients. Focusing on novel approaches in pharmaceutical science, this book is ideally designed for medical practitioners, upper-level students, scientists, and researchers.

Every year the average number of prescriptions purchased by Americans increases, as do healthcare expenditures, which are projected to reach one-fifth of the U.S. gross domestic product by 2020. In "Drugs for Life," Joseph Dumit considers how our burgeoning consumption of medicine and cost of healthcare not only came to be, but also came to be taken for granted. For several years, Dumit attended pharmaceutical industry conferences; spoke with marketers, researchers, doctors, and patients; and surveyed the industry's literature regarding strategies to expand markets for prescription drugs. He concluded that underlying the continual growth in medications, disease categories, costs, and insecurity is a relatively new perception of ourselves as inherently ill and in need of chronic treatment. This perception is based on clinical trials that we have largely outsourced to pharmaceutical companies. Those companies in turn see clinical trials as investments and measure the value of those investments by the size of the market and profits that they will create. They only ask questions for which the answer is more medicine. "Drugs for Life" challenges our understanding of health, risks, facts, and clinical trials, the very concepts used by pharmaceutical companies to grow markets to the point where almost no one can imagine a life without prescription drugs.

While systems biology and pharmacodynamics have evolved in parallel, there are significant interrelationships that can enhance drug discovery and enable optimized therapy for each patient. Systems pharmacology is the relatively new discipline that is the interface between these two methods. This book is the first to cover the expertise from systems biology and pharmacodynamics researchers, describing how systems pharmacology may be developed and refined further to show practical applications in drug development. There is a growing awareness that pharmaceutical companies should reduce the high attrition in the pipeline due to insufficient efficacy or toxicity found in proof-of-concept and/or Phase II studies. Systems Pharmacology and Pharmacodynamics discusses the framework for integrating information obtained from understanding physiological/pathological pathways (normal body function system vs. perturbed system due to disease) and pharmacological targets in order to predict clinical efficacy and adverse events through iterations between mathematical modeling and experimentation.

Managing the Drug Discovery Process: How to Make It More Efficient and Cost-Effective thoroughly examines the current state of pharmaceutical research and development by providing chemistry-based perspectives on biomedical research, drug hunting and innovation. The book also considers the interplay of stakeholders, consumers, and the drug firm with attendant factors, including those that are technical, legal, economic, demographic, political, social, ecological, and infrastructural. Since drug research can be a high-risk, high-payoff industry, it is important to researchers to effectively and strategically manage the drug discovery process. This book takes a closer look at increasing pre-approval costs for new drugs and examines not only why these increases occur, but also how they can be overcome to ensure a robust pharmacoeconomic future. Written in an engaging manner and including memorable insights, this book is aimed at redirecting the drug discovery process to make it more efficient and cost-effective in order to achieve the goal of saving countless more lives through science. A valuable and compelling resource, this is a must-read for all students and researchers in academia and the pharmaceutical industry.

This book is open access under a CC-BY license. The importance of the pharmaceutical industry in Sub-Saharan Africa, its claim to policy priority, is rooted in the vast unmet health needs of the sub-continent. Making Medicines in Africa is a collective endeavour, by a group of contributors with a strong African and more broadly Southern presence, to find ways to link technological development, investment and industrial growth in pharmaceuticals to improve access to essential good quality medicines, as part of moving towards universal access to competent health care in Africa. The authors aim to shift the emphasis in international debate and initiatives towards sustained Africa-based and African-led initiatives to tackle this huge challenge. Without the technological, industrial, intellectual, organisational and research-related capabilities associated with competent pharmaceutical production, and without policies that pull the industrial sectors towards serving local health needs, the African sub-continent cannot generate the resources to tackle its populations' needs and demands. Research for this book has been selected as one of the 20 best examples of the impact of UK research on development. See http://www.ukcds.org.uk/the-global-impact-of-uk-research for further details.

The biohealthcare executive in upper-middle management confronts leadership challenges unique to their industry: they manage highly specialized knowledge workers and innovators, compete at the speed of technology, work in a highly regulated environment where "free speech" often does not apply due to patient safety and privacy concerns, and increasingly are leading virtual teams who may be located in different parts of the world. Practical leadership for biopharmaceutical executives is a guide that strips away the theory and meets head-on the practical leadership challenges these executives face on a daily basis, and provides these "innovator leaders" with the tools to lead effectively in the face of technological complexity.

This volume provides information on how to select and screen plants for their medicinal properties. It describes phytopharmacological techniques for extracting and qualitatively and quantitatively analyzing a plant's phytochemicals. After a detailed in vitro investigation including nutritional and anti-nutritional analyses, medicinal properties were tested with various in vivo models for anti-inflammatory, analgesic, anti-pyretic, anticancer and anti-diabetic properties, as well as wound healing, neurodegenerative diseases, etc. Compound identification and purification techniques include, among others, TLC and column chromatography, as well as molecular docking with specific proteins.

I am encouraged to see healthcare leaders looking beyond the ways they have always done things in the past to implement innovative solutions to curb the industry's skyrocketing costs, poor quality, nursing shortages and employee dissatisfaction; all symptoms of deeper problems inherent in the system itself. Today's forward looking healthcare providers have realized the financial and moral imperatives for improving quality and safety and eliminating waste as strategies for responding to their pressing challenges. Lean Healthcare (adapted from the Toyota Production System) is not just for manufacturing or another short-term fix; it's a way to transform an entire organization into a safe and high-quality, high-performing healthcare delivery system. If implemented properly, it can be the "how to" for managing change and creating continuous improvement.

This book provides an overview of the global pharmaceutical pricing policies. Medicines use is increasing globally with the increase in resistant microbes, emergence of new treatments, and because of awareness among consumers. This has resulted in increased drug expenditures globally. As the pharmaceutical market is expanding, a variety of pharmaceutical pricing strategies and policies have been employed by drug companies, state organizations and pharmaceutical pricing authorities.

This book critically investigates the patent protection of medication in light of the threats posed by HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis epidemics to the citizens of countries in Sub-Saharan Africa (hereinafter "SSA" or "Africa"). The book outlines the systemic problems associated with the prevailing globalized patent regime and the regime's inability to promote access to life-saving medication at affordable prices in SSA. It argues that for pharmaceutical patents to retain their relevance in SSA countries, human development concepts must be integrated into global patent law- and policy-making. An integrative approach implies developing additional public health and human development exceptions/limitations to the exercise of patent rights with the goal of scaling up access to medication that can treat epidemics in SSA. By drawing on multiple perspectives of laws, institutions, practices, and politics, the book suggests that SSA countries adopt an evidence-based approach to implementing global patent standards in domestic jurisdictions. This evidence-based approach would include mechanisms like local need assessments and the use of empirical data to shape domestic patent law-making endeavors. The approach also implies revising patent rules and policies with a pro-poor and pro-health emphasis, so that medication will be more affordable and accessible to the citizens of SSA countries. It also suggests considering the opinions of individuals and pro-access institutions in enacting crucial pieces of health-related statutes in SSA countries. The approach in this book is sensitive to the public health needs of the citizens affected by epidemics and to the imperative of building local manufacturing facilities for pharmaceutical research and development in SSA.

This book explains how government support and institutional set up facilitated the evolution of the Indian pharmaceutical industry and provides an economic analysis of firm strategies due to recent policy changes. The book is useful for researchers interested in understanding the transition of a lifeline sector for an emerging economy like India. Students of public policy, health administrators and health economists who are interested in the functioning of the pharmaceutical sector that produces life saving drugs in developing nations will find this book useful. The book also provides good coverage on data envelopment analysis (DEA), a useful technique for understanding productivity and efficiency. It can provide guidance to the research students on the applicability of DEA technique to address various research questions for analysis. The book will be a valuable addition to libraries in colleges of pharmacy and medicine as well as to all other academic and research centers.

Our recent understanding of the cellular and molecular defects and the regulation of the apoptotic signalling pathways has resulted in rationally designed anticancer strategies and the development of novel agents that regulates apoptosis. A comprehensive review of all apoptotic-related anticancer therapies is not the purpose of this book. However, in the volume of this book with 11 chapters, we have described a number of novel apoptotic regulators that have shown promising value and also great feasibility for cancer treatment. These novel agents either occur naturally or are chemically synthesized. While we are excited about the discovery and development of these novel apoptotic regulators as potential anticancer agents, a degree of caution should be always borne in mind when interpreting the success of preclinical pro-apoptotic candidates since potential problems inevitably lie ahead. These problems usually include target specificity, unanticipated toxicity, compound stability, formulation issues, pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic profiles. Nevertheless, we believe that this collection of 11 chapters by established leaders in the area of apoptosis will be of great interest to not only academics working in the field of cancer research and apoptosis but also pharmaceutical and pharmacological industries that . We are looking forward to the further development to push these potential agents toward clinical stage.