The search for, and discovery of, two new anti-tumor drugs, navelbine and taxotere, modified natural products

Abstract

Man, since time immemorial, has always sought to extract subsistence and medicines from his environment. It is the accumulation of this experience acquired over several millennia in the selection of remedies, many of which have now been forgotten, which constitutes, even today, the basis of therapeutics. Names such as Colchicum, Digitalis, Belladonna, poppies and opium. Cinchona, strychnine, etc. are very current. Natural products still represent today more than 80% of pharmacological and therapeutic lead compounds. This high percentage is the result not only of what I call archeopharmacology (that based on ancient remedies) but also of the discovery, every year, of several natural substances having major biological and therapeutic interest. These include new antibiotics, of course, antiparasitics. compounds acting on the nervous and cardiovascular systems, etc.