In late 2005 several chemical analysts agreed that the total number of known molecules exceded 20 million but due to an exponential growth could reach 100 or even 200 million by the end of the twenty-first century.

Of these, at this time, only about 80,000 have some therapeutic use. Currently drugs are obtained by four different methods: a) chemical synthesis, b) biosynthesis, c) from natural products, and d) biotechnology. However, it is often used as mixed processes, eg with certain antibiotics (macrolides) or antifungals (Echinocandins), which combines chemical synthesis to biosynthesis to improve the microbiological activity orits pharmacokinetic characteristics.In other occasions, some active ingredients extracted from natural products are modified by semi-synthesis reactions to complete its structure and improve its business or its pharmacokinetic characteristics. Thus, precursors of anovulatory or anti-inflammatory steroids, from plants of the genus Dioscorea and Solanum, are amended later by methods of semi-synthesis or biosynthesis to produce various medicines.  Finally, some proteins produced by recombinant technology (interferons, G-CSF, erythropoietin, etc..) are chemically modified by chemical synthesis to improve their bioavailability or delay its clearance.

Drugs derived from biotechnology are emerging in a therapeutic class that presents differential clinical features , not only by their origin, but also by their chemical structure and some pharmaceutical and pharmacological properties.

Although modern biotechnology was born in 1953 when the structure of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) was discovered, its incorporation to human therapeutics does not occur until the early 80s with the use of insulin and recombinant growth hormone in hormone replacement therapy . To do this some technological advances were required like the introduction of restriction enzymes by Paul Berg in 1973, and cloning of genes for human insulin, developed by Herber Boyer in 1978.

Until 1996, the incorporation of recombinant drugs is largely anecdotal, that situation changed radically in the last decade, reaching a spectacular development. Nowadays there have been incorporated into the therapeutic arsenal about a 100 different kinds of medicines, although about 700 molecules for the diagnosis and treatment of some 250 diseases, found in 2005 in different phases of clinical research.

Several reports agree that biotech drugs come to represent in the future between 20-25% of all the medications. Since 2002, the percentage of new biotech molecules allowed in the U.S. exceeds the corresponding molecules from other sources, mainly the chemical synthesis.

Carlos Cusirramos Dueñas

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