Engineering Pharmaceuticals

Saturday, August 7, 2010 9pmProducer: Richard PaulListen AgainEngineering Pharmaceuticals explores one of the major causes of rising health care costs – development of new drugs. It can cost up to a billion dollars to bring a new drug to market. This program goes behind the curtain and shows how drugs are created and looks at efforts to bring down the cost.We look at what, exactly, drugs do; how they actually act to attack diseases. We hear the sound of pharmaceutical scientists making new drug compounds as they explain the process and where its costs lie. And we learn how engineers are helping redesign the drug manufacturing process to try and bring costs down. We also learn the ramifications of these high costs in places where people can barely afford food, let alone much-needed pharmaceuticals.Engineering Pharmaceuticals produced by Richard Paul and hosted by Barbara Bogaev, is part of the Grand Challenges Series from the Purdue University School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Science and the Purdue College of Engineering.