Development of antimalaria, antibacterial, anticancer and antitumour drugs from new chemical entities from plant sources

Abstract

Higher plants are capable of synthesizing complex and advanced chemical substances. Many of the unique gene sources may be lost through extinction, but as plants have great potential for producing new drugs, some remed-ial actions are required to preserve medicinal potential of plants. In cancer treatment, the percentage of non-synthetic small molecules of new chemical entities has averaged about 62 %. In other therapeutic areas, such as cardiovascular, antimicrobials, sexual dysfunction, and metabolic diseases, there has been extensive developme-nt of new chemical entities. In anti-hypertensive treatment, out of 74 synthetic drugs, about 48 have been traced to natural products. Active pharmaceutical ingredients, as lead compounds from plant sources have been devel-oped for many cancer antibiotics and anti-parasitic drugs. Other challenges of medicinal plant research are link-ed to the loss of biodiversity and conservation within the framework of sustainable management. The advances in sourcing plant products for new chemical entities as lead compounds in pharmaceuticals are reviewed in this paper. Major aspects of therapeutics, such as anticancer, antibacterial, antitumour, antimicrobials, and the use of NAPRALERT Natural Product Database are also presented. Bulk packaging and labelling of pharmaceutical plant products, and loss of biodiversity are highlighted as key factors in sustainable drug development from plants.