Background: The design and development of prodrugs is the most common and effective strategy to overcome pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic drawbacks of active drugs. A respected number of prodrugs have been reached the drugs market throughout history and the recent years have witnessed a significant increase in the use of prodrugs as a replacement of their parent drugs for an efficient treatment of various ailment.
Methods: A Scan conducted to find recent approved prodrugs and prodrugs in development.
Results: Selected prodrugs were reported and categorized in accordance to their target systems.
Conclusions: the prodrug approach has shown many successes and still remains a viable and effective approach to deliver new active agents. This conclusion is supported by the recent approved prodrugs and the scan of clinical trials conducted between 2013-2018.
Keywords: ACT-281959; ANAVEX 2-73; baloxavir marboxil; clinical trial; evofosfamide; fostemsavir; ixazomib; pretomanid; prodrug; selexipag.