Question: How do you make drugs?

Maria Whatton answered on 23 Mar 2022:

We combine together difference chemicals in a chemical reaction to make a new molecule. We might need to do this several times adding more atoms each time to the molecule making it larger. The process is a bit like cooking as you need to add chemicals (ingredients), stir, heat or cool and wait for a change to happen. This new molecule will be tested to see if it will have the right biological effect and pass lots of safety assessments before it would go into clinical trials many years later. When we first make the drug it would be done by one person in a laboratory in a glass container the size of a cup, if it starts to become successful it would need to be made on a large scale in a factory called a pilot plant.