Biopharmaceutical molecules

In this chapter the reader is invited to an in-depth discussion of biotechnology and its applications in the pharmaceutical industry. We begin with a brief overview of the expected health-care challenges for the near future in the light of current demographic trends, which will substantiate the recent technological breakthroughs described in the following sections. Afterward, we describe the importance of microbial molecules in the inception of the vaccine industry and proceed to comprehensively lay out its current tendencies. Next, we cover the main biopharmaceutical categories, including cytokines, hormones, blood factors, and enzymes, stressing production strategies that use microbial expression systems. The chapter ends with a discussion on the growing importance of gene and cell therapy in the future of medicine and lists some of the most exciting innovations in this field.