Soft Drugs and Retrometabolic Drug Design
Keywords:
soft drugs, retrometabolic drug design, ultra-short acting drugs, chemical delivery systems, therapeutic indexAbstract
The soft drug concept involves a possible way of developing safer drugs with broad therapeutic index. A metabolically labile group, usually an ester group, is introduced into the structure of the drugs. Hydrolysis of this group by the action of blood and tissue esterases leads rapidly to the inactive intermediates after reaching a desired effect. This review deals with brief history, terminology and most important and promising representatives of this group.