A review on worldwide essential software resources in pharmacy

Abstract

Softwares are the collection of computer programs and related data that provide the instructions telling a computer what to do and thereby help to process the data as wanted. These programs are designed to address general and special purpose applications. Softwares used in pharmaceutical sciences cover wide subject areas such as pharmacology, pharmaceutical chemistry, pharmaceutics, pharmacognosy, pharmaceutical biotechnology, etc. Softwares used in pharmacology are mainly related to minimize the efforts needed in determining pharmacokinetic principles of particular drug in individuals, pathways of drug, and consequently, its adverse reactions. Applications of softwares in pharmaceutical chemistry are to elucidate various physiological properties of drugs and to predict activity values for new compounds within certain limits. They may be enormous assistance to those trying to generate the large databases from massive efforts in drug research. However, softwares used in pharmaceutics help for predicting the dissolution rate, biopharmaceutical characterization, accurate and precise stability profile, etc. of formulated dosage form. Softwares used in pharmacognosy give information on herb activity, interactions, mechanisms of action and supporting data underlying the use of herb for health. Wide applications of software in pharmaceutical biotechnology help to increase the predictability of results, identify genes, elucidate protein structure, identify genome responsible for expression of particular characteristics, etc. Hence, in the present article, we have enlisted the subject wise different software names, websites and their features used in the milieu of pharmacy.