Microbiome Drug Development: An Investigation Into Challenges And Innovative Pipeline Approaches

Every human being hosts between 10 trillion and 100 trillion symbiotic micro-organisms, including bacteria, viruses and archaea. The collective genomes of these micro-organisms form what is known as the human microbiome. As research reveals more about the microbiome, the pharmaceutical industry can better understand how it may interact with different types of drug in the body, which in turn may affect the way the sector goes about developing drugs in the future.

In medicine, microorganisms have traditionally been considered in two categories: pathogens that cause disease; or commensal organisms that reside within the gastrointestinal tract of host individuals with no effect