Abstract
The potential of the marine environment to produce candidate compounds (structures)
as leads to, or even direct drugs from, has been actively discussed for the last 50
or so years. Over this time frame, several compounds have led to drugs, usually in
the area of cancer (due to funding sources). This review is designed to show where
there have been successes, but also to show that in a number of disease areas, there
are structures originally isolated from marine invertebrates and free-living microbes
that have potential, but will need to be “adopted” by pharmaceutical houses in order
to maximize their potential.
Key words
marine-sourced drugs - clinical trials - cancer - HIV
