Antibacterial and Antifungal Drugs from Natural Source: A Review of Clinical Development

Plants have been an integral part of the ancient culture of India, China and Egypt as a medicine, and their importance even dates back to the Neanderthal period. Historically, a majority of new drug is generated from compounds derived from natural products and secondary metabolites. Natural products show the large structural diversity and various modern techniques for structure elucidation, separation, combinatorial synthesis and screening have led to the revitalization of plant products as the sources of new drugs. Currently, there is a substantial decline in new drug approvals and in the impending loss of patent protection for important medicines. Considering this, the present review mainly focused on all types of the main groups of compounds classified as Natural products, semi-synthetic NPs and NP-derived compounds that have been registered, undergoing registration or in clinical development for antibacterial and antifungal activity. The review mainly enlights the need for new antibacterial and antifungal drugs along with a contribution of natural products in the discovery of new antibacterial and antifungal drugs. The review briefly discuss all the molecules obtained from natural sources which are in preclinical and clinical development.

Keywords: Antibacterials, Antifungals, Clinical development, Natural Source.