Abstract
The marine environment harbors a number of macro and micro organisms that have developed unique metabolic abilities to ensure their survival in diverse and hostile habitats, resulting in the biosynthesis of an array of secondary metabolites with specific activities. Several of these metabolites are high-value commercial products for the pharmaceutical and cosmeceutical industries. The aim of this review is to outline the paths of marine natural products discovery and development, with a special focus on the compounds that successfully reached the market and particularly looking at the approaches tackled by the pharmaceutical and cosmetic companies that succeeded in marketing those products. The main challenges faced during marine bioactives discovery and development programs were analyzed and grouped in three categories: biodiversity (accessibility to marine resources and efficient screening), supply and technical (sustainable production of the bioactives and knowledge of the mechanism of action) and market (processes, costs, partnerships and marketing). Tips to surpass these challenges are given in order to improve the market entry success rates of highly promising marine bioactives in the current pipelines, highlighting what can be learned from the successful and unsuccessful stories that can be applied to novel and/or ongoing marine natural products discovery and development programs.
Highlights
Natural products (NP) are usually small molecules, with a molecular weight below 3000 Da, which are produced by a biological source such as plants, animals and microorganisms, but which occurrence may be limited to a particular taxonomic family, genus, species or even organism [1]
Despite the fact that oceans cover more than 70% of the earth‘s surface, the exploration of marine ecosystems has only began in the mid 1970‘s, with the emergence of modern snorkeling, the introduction of scuba in 1970 and later, around 1990, with the use of remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) [2]
In addition to the specialty ingredients mentioned above, the marine environment contains a source of polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs), polysaccharides, essential minerals and vitamins used as cosmeceuticals
Summary
Natural products (NP) are usually small molecules, with a molecular weight below 3000 Da, which are produced by a biological source such as plants, animals and microorganisms, but which occurrence may be limited to a particular taxonomic family, genus, species or even organism [1] They are often called secondary metabolites because, predominantly, they are not biosynthesized by the general metabolic pathways and have no primary function directly involved in the normal growth, development or reproduction of an organism. It was even realized that many compounds previously isolated from marine macroorganisms, such as sponges and tunicates, are metabolic products of associated microorganisms [12,13] Due to their broad panel of bioactivities such as anti-tumor, anti-microtubule, anti-proliferative, photoprotective, antibiotic and anti-infective [14,15,16,17,18,19], marine natural products (MNP) are exceptionally interesting high-value ingredients for applications in the pharmaceutical industry and more and more companies are investing in this field. Tips for success will be given so that more MNP can reach the market
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