[The effect of chirality in clinical pharmacology]

Abstract

Many drugs have one or more asymmetric centres and are used as a racemate: equimolar mixture of enantiomers. Drug enantiomers may interact differently with biological macromolecules. Hence, the influence of chirality in relation to pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics needs to be studied. Many pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic examples stress on the major influence of chirality. The valuable knowledge acquired from such studies can lead to a better understanding of drug interactions and mechanisms of drug action and to an optimization of drug therapy either by a better use of still marketed racemate drugs of by the development of pure enantiomers.