Pharmaceutics of penicillin

✍ Scribed by M. A. Schwartz; F. H. Buckwalter

• Book ID: 102913002
• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1962
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 803 KB
• Volume: 51
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0022-3549
• DOI: 10.1002/jps.2600511202

✦ Synopsis

ROBABLY no group of drugs has received more P,ttention and been more intensively studied than the penicillins (I).

Their basic structure includes a double ring thiazolidine @-lactam moiety which has been named 6-aminopenicillanic acid (6-APA) . The differences in the physical, chemical, and biological properties of the various penicillins are due to their side chains (R in I).

The P-lactam ring is quite labile in all the penicillins known a t present. Differences in stability of the several penicillins are determined by the side chains, the structural characteristics of which confer varying degrees of protection against degradation.

Before the isolation of 6-APA from fermentation broths by a group a t the Beecham Laboratories in England in 1958 (l), complete penicillins could be made commercially only by fermentation, and variations in the side chain were made by the addition of appropriate precursors to the fermentation broth. This severely limited the number and types of penicillins which could be produced. Since 1958, however, penicillins have achieved a revived importance in chemotherapy because now, theoretically any side