The Sea, the Future Pharmacy

The oceans as ‘mother of origin of life’ are a unique source that provide a various collection of natural products from sponges, tunicates, bryozoans, algae and molluscs as well as cyanobacteria and the other marine organisms. In the past few decades, a significant number of marine natural products with potent pharmacological properties have been discovered from these organisms. Here, we evaluate the history of drug discovery and theire development, from sea natural compounds, providing an outlook into the future. For our aims, we collected the data for this review by searcheing pubmed (in 2014. 26.06), Marine Lit in addition to archives of ISMJ site through google. Search terms were “marine venoms to drugs” and “marine bioactive compounds” for pubmed, and a total of 69 papers were found, that 50 more related articles were selected. From Search terms of “marine bioactive compounds to drugs” and “marine bioactive compounds” in Marine Lit were obtained, 67 and 105 English-language papars, respectevily; that in the end 99 articles were selected. In addition from search for “marine bioactive compounds in bpums or ISMJ” 11 related publications were selected. At the present time, specific bioactive compounds such as cytarabine are accessible in market; some of them are present in different phases of the clinical trials, Phase I, Phase II or Phase III, as wll as in the preclinical pipeline, or either expected to be approved soon. Many marine products are useful for cancer, chronic pains, infectious diseases, acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS), arthritis, inflammations, and the other therapeutic paybacks. The authors believe that the sea can be a promising drug discovery for patients who have disappointed and give up of land resources. History of these compounds shows that initial efforts that led to the isolation of active compounds; can be the start point for the next stage of their development. Therefore, any research with a certain purpose, though seemingly small, can be a preface to the discovery of a new drug. A comparison as the antiquity of a few decades the pharmaceutical science with marine resources, than their several thousand years antiquity in the mainland, Can guess “What has accelerated the speed of their progress”.