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Pharmaceutical Drugs Through Biotechnology -Drugs for treatment of diseases can also be manufactured using biotechnology. Treatment of diseases can also be affected through gene therapy. Many of the drugs for treatment are such, which could earlier be obtained only by sacrificing animal life.

Two such drugs are insulin for treatment of diabetes and interferons for treatment against some tumour viruses. Such drugs can be manufactured now in bacterial cells in large quantities, if the corresponding genes from human or animals are cloned through plasmid vectors in bacteria, thus making their production relatively very cheap.

The gene for insulin was cloned in bacteria and could be used for synthesis of insulin. Dr. Saran Narang, a scientist of Indian origin, working in Ottawa,
Canada was involved in cloning of insulin gene. Synthetic insulin manufactured in this manner is now being sold commercially in North America.

About a dozen different interferons are also in different stages of testing and some of them are already being sold commercially. This drug 'interferon' was earlier used to be available at the rate of 16 million U.S. dollars per 50 mg. costing a patient, 150 dollars per day.

It is estimated that with the availability of synthetic interferons this may reduce to a cost of one dollar per day. A number of other proteins like urokinase, factor VII: C, human growth hormone (HGH) and many other drugs will soon be available through this technique.

In 1985, human growth hormone for treating hypopitiuitary dwarfism was synthesized using recombinant DNA technique and was approved for commercial marketing under the name prototropin in USA and under the name somatonorm in Britain. Both insulin (manufactured by Eli Lilley) and this growth hormone were manufactured under licence from Genentech Inc. based in USA.

The manufacture of prototropin and somatonorm assumed significance, since growth hormone derived from human pituitary glands was halted due to fear that it may transmit a rare and fatal viral neurological disease known as Creutz Feldt-Jakob Disease (CJD). More growth hormones are being synthesized , by several companies.
 
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