Drug discovery In the fields of medicine, biotechnology, and pharmacology, drug discovery is the process by which new candidate medications are discovered. Historically, drugs were discovered by identifying the active ingredient from traditional remedies or ...

and

development Development or developing may refer to: Arts *Development (music), the process by which thematic material is reshaped * Photographic development *Filmmaking, development phase, including finance and budgeting * Development hell, when a proje ...

requires the integration of multiple scientific and technological disciplines. These include

chemistry Chemistry is the scientific study of the properties and behavior of matter. It is a physical science within the natural sciences that studies the chemical elements that make up matter and chemical compound, compounds made of atoms, molecules a ...

biology Biology is the scientific study of life and living organisms. It is a broad natural science that encompasses a wide range of fields and unifying principles that explain the structure, function, growth, History of life, origin, evolution, and ...

pharmacology Pharmacology is the science of drugs and medications, including a substance's origin, composition, pharmacokinetics, pharmacodynamics, therapeutic use, and toxicology. More specifically, it is the study of the interactions that occur betwee ...

pharmaceutical technology Pharmaceutics is the discipline of pharmacy that deals with the process of turning a new chemical entity (NCE) or an existing drug into a medication to be used safely and effectively by patients. The patients could be either humans or animals. Pha ...

and extensive use of

information technology Information technology (IT) is a set of related fields within information and communications technology (ICT), that encompass computer systems, software, programming languages, data processing, data and information processing, and storage. Inf ...

. The latter is increasingly recognised as Pharmacoinformatics. Pharmacoinformatics relates to the broader field of

bioinformatics Bioinformatics () is an interdisciplinary field of science that develops methods and Bioinformatics software, software tools for understanding biological data, especially when the data sets are large and complex. Bioinformatics uses biology, ...

Introduction

The main idea behind the field is to integrate different informatics branches (e.g. bioinformatics, chemoinformatics, immunoinformatics, etc.) into a single platform, resulting in a seamless process of drug discovery. The first reference of the term "Pharmacoinformatics" can be found in the year of 1993. The first dedicated department for Pharmacoinformatics was established at the

National Institute Of Pharmaceutical Education And Research National Institute of Pharmaceutical Education and Research (NIPERs) are a group of national level universities of pharmaceutical sciences or Pharmacy school in India. The Government of India has declared the NIPERs as Institutes of National I ...

, S.A.S. Nagar, India in 2003. This has been followed by different universities worldwide including a program by European universities named the European Pharmacoinformatics Initiative (Europin).

Definition

Pharmacoinformatics is also referred to as pharmacy informatics. According to the article "Pharmacy Informatics: What You Need to Know Now" by the University of Illinois at Chicago Pharmacoinformatics may be defined as: “the scientific field that focuses on medication-related data and knowledge within the continuum of healthcare systems.” It is the application of computers to the storage, retrieval and analysis of drug and prescription information. Pharmacy informaticists work with pharmacy information management systems that help the pharmacist safe decisions about patient drug therapies with respect to, medical insurance records, drug interactions, as well as prescription and patient information. Pharmacy informatics can be thought of as a sub-domain of the larger professional discipline of health informatics. Health informatics is the study of interactions between people, their work processes and engineered systems within health care with a focus on pharmaceutical care and improved patient safety. For example, the Health Information Management Systems Society (HIMSS) defines pharmacy informatics as, "the scientific field that focuses on medication-related data and knowledge within the continuum of healthcare systems - including its acquisition, storage, analysis, use and dissemination - in the delivery of optimal medication-related patient care and health outcomes"

References

{{Authority control Pharmacology Pharmaceutical industry Drug discovery Cheminformatics Bioinformatics

Introduction

Definition

See also

References