Drug Discovery from Natural Products

Abstract

Natural products are widely used to prevent and treat different diseases. The constituents present in plants have been a widely explored source in developing new medicines, especially for the treatment of cancer and infectious diseases. Cancer, in particular, is considered a multifactorial disease and is often the focus of the research applications of new biomolecules. In this chapter, special attention was given to the innovation of technologies in the development of strategies for growth, differentiation and problem solving. In this regard, patents provide a way to assess the degree of innovation present in the pharmaceutical industry. Therefore, this chapter presents a review of recent patents in drug discovery from natural products.