Four main themes are the focus of the Division of Pharmaceutics and Pharmacology: (1) cancer therapeutics, (2) cell protective therapies, (3) drug delivery methods, and (4) drug toxicity.

(1) Cancer Therapeutics: the detection of drug resistance mechanisms, the discovery of anti-cancer drug targets, and the optimization of drug delivery to enhance outcomes for cancer patients.

(2) Cell Protective Therapies: The creation of therapies to lessen inflammatory and degenerative processes will be aided by preclinical research on the mechanisms of cell death and cell survival.

(3) Drug Delivery Systems: Future medications to treat human diseases will be developed using pharmaceutical chemistry, biotechnology, and RNA nanotechnology.

(4) Drug Toxicity: Understanding how drugs enter healthy cells and have toxic effects will assist with the development of patient-health improvement strategies.

Pharmacokinetics studies the body's absorption, distribution, metabolization, and excretion of a substance.

A drug's organ-specific mechanism of action and its biochemical and physiological effects, including effects at the cellular level, are studied by the discipline of pharmacodynamics.

Pharmacokinetics is “what the body does to the drug," whereas pharmacodynamics is “what the drug does to the body.”

By giving instructions on dosage, potential side effects, or differences in efficacy for individuals with particular gene variants, pharmacogenomic information on the labels of medications can help doctors tailor drug prescriptions for individual patients. Pharmacogenomics is also being used by pharmaceutical firms to create and sell medications for patients with particular genetic profiles. 

Pharmacogenomics’ advantages

• maximise a drug's or treatment's planned use.
• minimise negative drug responses.
• hasten the process of a drug's therapeutic advantage being realised.
• reduce the likelihood of adverse impacts or dependency.

Pharmacognosy is the study of natural medicines derived from living things like plants, microorganisms, and animals. Many significant medications still in use today, such as morphine, atropine, galantamine, etc., have their roots in nature and are still useful model molecules for drug development. Pharmacognosy also includes traditional medicine, and the majority of third-world nations still rely heavily on the use of plant remedies. Pharmacognosy is always in demand in the pharmaceutical sciences and is crucial to the development of new drugs.

Pharmaceutical formulation is a multi-step process that results in a helpful medicinal product by combining the active ingredient with all other ingredients while taking into account solubility, pH, polymorphism, and particle size. The four fundamental elements for a successful pharmaceutical formulation are the advantages and limitations of the active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs), useful excipients, associated interactions, and manufacturing process. The formulation frequently works in a manner that incorporates various dosage forms. There are presently tens of thousands of medication formulations on the market that patients can use and clinicians can prescribe.

The full manufacturing process of drugs and medications is the emphasis of process engineering in the pharmaceutical sector.  

Important obligations include:

• establishing, assessing, and improving complete industrial processes, from conception to approval
• choosing and incorporating new hardware and services
• conducting routine risk analyses of equipment and procedures
• reporting to senior management and assessing the process capacity of the equipment.

Pharmaceutical Microbiology is the study of the particular microorganisms involved in the design, scalability, and production of pharmaceuticals as well as the following reduction or eradication of their numbers in a process environment. The study and development of anti-infectives, the use of microorganisms to screen potential medications for mutagenic and carcinogenic activity, and the use of microorganisms in the production of pharmaceuticals like insulin and human growth hormone are all additional facets of pharmaceutical microbiology.

Pharmaceutical Microbiology Involves

• Endotoxin detection and testing
• environmental testing and surveillance
• Systems for Detecting Microbes
• Testing and Detection of Mycoplasma

Pharmaceutical Biotechnology

Pharmaceutical biotechnology is a fresh and expanding field in which the biotechnological principles are used to create pharmaceuticals. Vaccines, nucleic acid products, and antibodies are examples of bioformulations that make up the bulk of therapeutic drugs on the market today. Understanding the fundamental molecular mechanisms governing the function of related biomolecules, their synthesis and purification, evaluation of the product's shelf life, stability, toxicity, and immunogenicity, development of drug delivery systems, patenting, and clinical trials are all steps in the development of such bioformulations.

In the realm of pharmaceuticals and medicine, nanotechnology is regarded as a recent and quickly developing area. As drug delivery methods, nanoparticles offer a number of benefits in terms of increased efficacy and fewer negative drug reactions. The primary variables influencing nanoparticles' physical stability and biological performance of the incorporated drug are particle size, surface charge, surface hydrophobicity, and drug release. Numerous nanodrugs have been used in clinical practise for a variety of reasons and for both therapeutic and diagnostic purposes. Nanoparticles are used to treat renal conditions, tuberculosis, skin problems, Alzheimer's disease, various cancers, and to make COVID-19 vaccines.

Pharmacovigilance is the study and practise concerned with the identification, evaluation, comprehension, and avoidance of side effects or any other issue involving drugs or vaccines.  Before being approved for use, all medications and vaccines go through extensive clinical trials to test their safety and effectiveness.  The health care team must be properly trained by national pharmacovigilance centres to identify and record any adverse drug events. The WHO has authorised these facilities, including those in nations participating in the WHO Program for International Drug Monitoring. The significance and roles of pharmacovigilance are important; they have grown over time to include a variety of patient safety-related fields.

In sports, using illegal substances or techniques to improve performance is becoming very prevalent, which frequently kills the spirit of competition. The use of performance-enhancing drugs by athletes was reported to occur at rates varying from 5% to 31% by the regulatory organisations for sports. With the use of such drugs, athletes run the risk of suffering severe injuries and morbidities, which can result in poor health. Anabolic-androgenic steroids and their analogues, blood, erythropoietin, growth hormone and its derivatives, nutritional supplements, creatine, amphetamines, beta-hydroxy-beta-methyl butyrate (HMB), stimulants, and analgesics are some of the substances that are frequently misused in sports. Studying the different facets of drug use and abuse in sports, as well as providing medical care for sports-related injuries, are all included in sports pharmacology.

Vaccines train the body's immune system to recognise and fight against dangerous microbes. They come in the form of injections (shots), liquids, pills, or nasal sprays.

Types of Vaccines:

• A reduced version of the germ is used in live-attenuated vaccines.
• The germ is destroyed and used in inactivated vaccines.
• The only components of the germ that are used in subunit, recombinant, polysaccharide, and conjugate vaccines are its protein, sugar, or packaging.
• vaccines known as toxoids that use a toxin, a toxic byproduct of the germ.
• mRNA vaccines use messenger RNA, which instructs your cells to produce a protein (or component of a protein) from the embryo.
• The genetic material used in viral vector vaccines provides your cells with the directions they need to produce the germ's protein.

The scientific study of harmful impacts caused by chemicals on living things is known as toxicology. It entails keeping track of and documenting symptoms that appear after exposure to toxic chemicals. The dose of the substance is a crucial element in toxicology because it significantly affects the effects that the person will feel. In toxicology, the word "LD50" refers to the amount of a substance that will cause 50% of a test population to perish.

Specific areas of toxicity

There are various divisions of toxicology, each of which concentrates on different facets of the discipline. These consist of:

• Toxicogenomic
• Aquatic toxicology
• Chemical toxicology
• Clinical toxicology
• Ecotoxicology
• Environmental toxicology
• Forensic toxicology
• Medical toxicology
• Occupational toxicology
• Regulatory toxicology

Tissue Engineering is the process of combining scaffolds, cells, and biologically active molecules to create functional tissues. It developed from the area of biomaterials development. Creating functional constructs that repair, sustain, or enhance damaged tissues or entire organs is the aim of tissue engineering. Designed tissues include artificial epidermis and cartilage.

Research on self-healing, in which the body uses its own mechanisms, occasionally with assistance from external biological material, to recreate cells and rebuild tissues and organs, is also included in the wide field of regenerative medicine.  As the field strives to concentrate on cures rather than treatments for complex, frequently chronic illnesses, the words "tissue engineering" and "regenerative medicine" have largely come to be used interchangeably.

Drug Discovery:

• New understandings into the pathophysiology of an illness that enable researchers to create a product to halt or reverse the effects of the disease.
• Molecular compounds have undergone numerous tests to determine any potential therapeutic benefits against a wide range of illnesses.
• treatments currently in use that have unexpected consequences.
• new technologies, like those that offer new methods to manipulate genetic material or target medical products to particular body parts.

Drug Development

When a potential compound is chosen for development, researchers run tests to learn more about:how it is metabolized, dispersed, and eliminated.

Its possible advantages and methods of operation.

• The ideal dose.
• The ideal dosage for the medication (such as by mouth or injection).
• Toxicity is the term for bad reactions or side effects.
• How it differs depending on the gender, race, or ethnicity of a group of individuals.
• how it works with different medications and therapies.
• its efficacy in comparison to equivalent medications.

Systems for delivering medications into or throughout the body are known as drug delivery systems. The delivery technique, such as a pill you swallow or an injection of a vaccine, is one of these technologies. Drug "packaging"—such as a micelle or a nanoparticle—that shields the drug from deterioration and enables it to move wherever it is needed in the body is referred to as drug delivery systems.  The targeted distribution of medications will be made easier and their side effects will be lessened with further advancements in this field. Routes of delivery and delivery vehicles are the two general categories into which current research on drug delivery systems can be divided.

Delivery Routes

There are many different methods to take medications, including by injection, inhalation, skin absorption, and swallowing. Vaccination without discomfort using a microneedle patch: Because of their small size, the needles can transport medications painlessly even though they penetrate the epidermis and do not reach the nerves. Robotic pill for complicated drug oral administration.

Delivery Vehicles

By enabling the medication to go precisely where it needs to go, drug delivery vehicles can enhance drug targeting.

Sub tracks:

• Challenges in Drug Delivery Systems
• Advances in Drug Delivery Systems
• Nanotechnology and Drug carrier systems
• Novel Drug Delivery Systems
• Alternative Drug Delivery Systems
• Peptides and Protein Drug Delivery Systems
• Targetted Drug Delivery Systems

The role that drug trials play in the development of new medications, their stages, and the numerous ethical problems that could arise in clinical trials. It identifies key elements of drug trials that the healthcare team—including doctors, nurses, technicians, pharmacists, and data analysts—needs to comprehend in order to analyse and comprehend the findings of clinical trials and use this understanding to guide their patient care.

Objectives:

• Describe the different stages of drug studies.
• Describe the moral and social dilemmas that frequently arise during drug trials.
• Describe the therapeutic importance of drug trials in brief.
• Describe the significance of interprofessional team collaboration and coordination in enhancing research results, ensuring transparency, and ensuring proper application of data from drug trials.

The academic community is using 2D and 3D printing more and more in the pharmaceutical industry (for medical devices and drugs), and more recently, they have begun to be used to make drugs in industry and hospitals. In 2018, a hospital pharmacy in Great Britain conducted the first clinical study using drugs that were 3D printed. One of the tools for a more personalised approach to medicine is 2D-3D printing, with additive printing techniques enabling the creation of polypills—tabs holding multiple medications—and the creation of specially formulated drugs with modified half-lives. This strategy might enable safer manufacturing and greater acceptance of the final product. Highlighting pertinent printing technologies for use in hospital pharmacies is the goal of this effort.

Pharmaceutical digital marketing employs a number of digital strategies and platforms that are common in other industries, though frequently in ways that are unique to the life sciences. Pharma must make sure that all digital interactions and patient outreach adhere to all regulations because it is a regulated sector. Some digital platforms and strategies are unique to the pharmaceutical industry and were frequently created to support the top-notch scientific and medical conversations that businesses offer HCPs.

Nutraceuticals are products made from food sources that offer additional health advantages over and above the fundamental nutritional value found in food. The use of nutritional supplements to support overall health, manage symptoms, and stop cancerous processes can be viewed as a non-specific biological therapy. Dietary supplements, functional foods, therapeutic foods, and pharmaceuticals are the four main groups into which nutraceuticals are typically divided.

"A topical preparation that is sold as a cosmetic but has performance characteristics that suggest pharmaceutical action" is referred to as cosmeceuticals.  The field of cosmeceuticals has been growing almost rapidly, thanks to discoveries like alpha-hydroxy acids for exfoliation and skin rejuvenation, various topical vitamin C formulations, and an abundance of antioxidants, among others. The word "cosmeceutical," which described a new class of cosmetic products that offered effects beyond simple cosmetic enhancement but didn't meet the criteria for a drug or pharmaceutical, gained more traction as it became more appropriate.

Designing and synthesising biologically active compounds is the focus of pharmaceutical (medical) chemistry. The objective is to acquire new chemical molecules that could help in the finding of new pharmaceuticals or optimise already known drug structures, thereby increasing the variety of chemical drugs. Even though organic chemistry is essential, only skilled pharmaceutical chemists are able to collaborate with scientists from a variety of fields, including molecular biology, structural biology, pharmacology, physical chemistry, biochemistry, pharmacokinetics, pharmaceutical technology, toxicology, and translational medicine.