New Product Development

In today’s immense competition, companies that fail to develop new development are putting themselves at a great risk. Their existing products are vulnerable to change to the consumer needs and to survive in the competitive market it is a must.
At the same time it is risky and costly as it continues to fail at a disturbing rate. There are several factors responsible as:
• The actual product is well designed.
• The idea is good but the market size is overestimated
• The new product is incorrectly positioned in the market , not advertised effectively or over priced.
• Development costs are higher than expected
• Competitors fight back harder than expected.
• Costliness of the process
• Capital storage
• Faster development time
.In the New Product Development, eight stages are involved. They are
• Idea generation
• Screening
• Concept development
• Marketing strategy
• Business analysis
• Product development
• Market testing
• Commercialization
The development of new drug is a process which takes some years with only occasional success. The drug is synthesized and it’s activity is determined by structure activity relation of related compounds. The structure of New compound and purity are confirmed by analytical chemistry. It then passes into hands of pharmacologist to screen pharmacological and toxicological effects. For example, the neuromuscular toxic activity of succinyl choline was misused in early experiments in which it’s possible ganglion blocking action was studied in animals.
Toxicity studies are carried out with both acute and chronic measures with the drugs in different doses. Acute studies determine the doses necessary to kill a certain proportions of animals i.e.LD50 (dose to kill 50% of animals) abd the mode by which the death occurs. Chronic studies are designed to detect the effect of it’s long term administration over a major proportion of the animals with the expected life span.
During the both type of studies acute and chronic close observation of the behavior and physiological activities of the animals is carried out as well as detailed bio-chemical and hematological measurement after the death of the animals, histological examination of allorgans shows the effect of drugs on the body.
Toxicity studies are also carried out on all new drugs for their effect on representation. These tests are grouped under the headings as:
• Test on fertility and embryonic development
• Tests in which the effects of drugs in organogenesis are assessed.
• Adverse effects on the Mother in the prenatal and post-natal stages are carried out.
After the toxicological studies, bio-chemical studies are to be carried out. The chemical studies are done in the experimental animals to determine the absorption by different routes of administration, it’s distribution in the body and route of metabolism. If possible the blood & tissue levels to produce pharmacological & toxic effects are determined. These studies depend on the development of sensitive assays, methods involving spectrophotometry, Florimetry, Atomic absorption spectroscopy & Radioimmunoassay techniques.