Welcome to Biotechnology


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Biopharmaceuticals are any drugs derived from biological or living sources, unlike the traditional drugs that are synthesized chemically. These are essentially macromolecule drugs consisting of proteins, therapeutic serum, virus, vaccine, gene transfer or blood components. Today advances in biotechnology have brought in a sea change in the entire global pharmaceutical industry. The reason for this is that biopharmaceuticals can be tailored for a specific problem in a given individual. Any drug can be genetically modified using DNA recombinant technology or cell fusion technology so as to increase its specificity for a particular disease. Distinct advantages include less side effects, stronger, effective and potent action on the target cells.

Currently biopharmaceuticals are being developed to fight against cancer, viral infections, diabetes, hepatitis, multiple sclerosis and many other conditions and diseases. Biotechnology involves using microorganisms orhybrids of tumor cells and white blood corpuscles to create new agentsidentical to conventional synthetic drugs. The greatest potential of pharmaceutical biotechnology lies in gene therapy and genetic engineering.
The main groupings of biopharmaceuticals include hormones and enzymes, cytokines and peptides (naturally occurring proteins that regulate or modify the growth of specific cells), vaccines, monoclonal antibodies, antisense drugs and cell therapies.