Compound Drug Design: Overview of Compound Drug Design:

What is compound drug design?

Compound drug design is a process of combining, mixing, or altering ingredients in a medication for the specific needs or purpose of a given patient. Drug compounding is normally done by a pharmacist (for example, using inactive ingredients to use in a drug if a patient is allergic to another ingredient).

Patients have benefited from traditional Compound Drug Design: people who have difficult swallowing pills, children, or the elderly population.

Compounding: Types and Settings:

Compounding can occur in community pharmacies, physicians’ offices, and hospitals, and this is an important practice for independent communities, as it allows for improvements in the perceived quality of patient care and strengthens patient-pharmacist relationships. Sterile drug compounding is most commonly seen with injectable, implant, and ophthalmic preparations, while non-sterile compounding is prominent in oral and topical (skin) formulations. Drug design is regulated by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and is detailed at the federal level under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FDCA).

Complexity of Drug Compounding:

Provider has to prepare the drug with the appropriate dose with the proper measurements of the required ingredients.

Complex drugs are designed by a process called formulation science: experts apply established science and are able to guide decisions about quantities and combinations of active and inactive ingredients, incorporate quality procedures, and test for stability.

The formulation of the specifics and environmental constraints creates a little margin of error. “For example, delivery of active ingredient doses above the desired therapeutic level could result from miscalculation, including too much API in the formulation, or from poor-quality formulation resulting in an erratic and unpredictable release rate; the latter has been observed with compounded pellet formulations” [1].

Due to this complexity, future research articles will have a focus on the use of Artificial Intelligence to ameliorate the situation of drug compounding.

Sources:
National Academies of Sciences, E., Division, H. and M., Policy, B. on H. S., Therapy, C. on the C. U. of T. P. with C. B. H. R., Jackson, L. M., Parker, R. M., & Mattison, D. R. (2020). An Overview of Compounding. In www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov. National Academies Press (US). https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK562881/