Historical aspects of chirality of drugs

Abstract

Currently only about 15% of all pharmaceutical products synthesized are presented by pure enantiomers.Many medicines exist as a mixture of two, and often a larger number of spatial isomers with a different biological activity. Optical isomers have different biological, pharmacological and technological properties. The optical activity, odor, toxicity, pharmacodynamic, pharmacokinetic and technological properties depend on chirality of the same substance. This led to the study of important aspects of the theory of chirality when creating medicines. The article considers historical aspects of chirality of drugs. Based on the library analysis the mandatory consideration of the chemical nature of chirality of drugs in production of pharmaceuticals, as well as the necessity of the preclinical and clinical trials of drugs have been substantiated. It has been found that creation of pure chiral drugs is a promising research direction. Its introduction into clinical practice allows, firstly, to use lowerdoses of drugs without the loss of efficiency, and secondly, to improve the safety and reduce the risk of adverse reactions during therapy.