Medical Enzymes Will Become a New Bright Spot in the International Pharmaceutical Market

Author: Iva Colter

With the advent of more and more new enzyme preparations, medical enzymes will become a new bright spot in the international pharmaceutical market. There are only a few varieties of domestic medical enzymes such as multi-enzyme tablets. Enzyme is a general term for important protein and biochemical substances. Enzymes exist in plants and animals.

As early as more than 100 years ago, Western scientists have isolated trypsin with physiological effects from animal digestive tract fluids. This substance can break down various proteins into amino acids in test tubes. Because of its extensive participation in various physiological activities, enzymes have become more and more widely used in medicine. Due to the small demand for industrial enzymes, the fermentation method for industrial production of enzymes, namely the fermentation method, did not come out until the 1950s.

Although there are at least thousands of enzymes discovered by scientists at present, there are only dozens of enzymes that are actually put into industrial production, and some enzymes are directly extracted from plants or prepared by bioengineering technology. Enzyme is an ecological and efficient catalyst, and has a strong specificity that one enzyme can only catalyze and transform one substance. At present, the global total production of industrial enzymes has exceeded 1 million tons, and China's annual production of enzymes accounts for about 1/3 of the world's total output.

It is estimated that in 2007, the total global market sales of enzymes reached 5 billion to 6 billion US dollars. The most important uses of enzymes are concentrated in the food industry. In addition, they are also widely used in the pharmaceutical industry, feed and other industries. In terms of consumption, the food industry consumes about two-thirds of the world's total enzyme production, and the total consumption of enzymes in other industries accounts for the remaining one-third.

It plays an important role in the production of?-lactam antibiotics. The application of enzymes in the pharmaceutical industry began in the early 1980s. With the advent of cephalosporin?-lactam antibiotics, the serious environmental pollution caused during the production of cephalosporin products is worrying. At that time, British and Dutch scientists first reformed the chemical lysis method that has been used for many years into a clean and efficient "enzymatic lysis"-the enzyme used was penicillin lyase and cephalosporin lyase, thereby eliminating the production of semi-synthetic penicillin or cephalosporin Environmental pollution caused by bacteriocin products. These two enzymes can be used to prepare a series of semi-synthetic penicillins such as ampicillin and amoxicillin and other key raw materials for cephalosporins. With the implementation of the enzymatic cracking process, antibiotic production has entered a brand new "enzymatic production era".

In recent years, some newly developed therapeutic enzyme preparations abroad such as antibacterial enzymes, fibrinolytic enzymes, mucolytic enzymes, analgesic enzymes, antitumor enzymes, immune activator enzymes, etc. In addition, Western researchers have also found that protease preparations compatible use with existing antibiotics such as ampicillin, tetracycline, SMP-CO and fluoroquinolones can greatly improve the antimicrobial effect of these drugs and reduce the drug resistance of bacteria.

According to reports, some hospitals have combined enzyme preparations with antibiotic preparations to achieve good results in the treatment of refractory urinary tract infections. These new clinical uses have laid a solid foundation for the medical market for enzyme preparations. Medical enzyme preparations have become a new breed of therapeutic agents. With the advent of more and more new enzyme preparations, medical enzymes such as diagnostic enzymes will become a new bright spot in the international pharmaceutical market. The enzymes produced now are mainly concentrated in the food industry, accounting for about 96% of the domestic enzyme production value, and there are very few varieties for treatment. At present, there are only a few varieties such as multi-enzyme tablets and lumbrokinase. It is believed that, driven by the new trend of international drug use, domestic development of new medical enzyme production will have broad market prospects.