Health: from aspirin to cancer-fighting drugs

For some, pharmaceuticals mean a better quality of life. For others, they mean the difference between life and death. In both cases, aromatics play an essential part.

Cumene and phenol, for example, both produced from benzene, are used as a starting material to make aspirin and penicillin, one of the first and still one of the antibiotic agents.

Aspirin, Cancer-fighting drugs, Disposable Syringes are just examples of those medical advances that rely heavely on the input of Aromatics...

Some aromatic resins are used in drug purification, which allows to extract only the therapeutic component– the disease-fighting part – from the overall plants, fermented starches or other complex chemical brews from which most drugs are derived, and to remove organic impurities from the result.

So far, these resins and these technologies have been used in antibiotics, as well as in the development of therapies treating conditions such as arthritis, AIDS, and various forms of cancer.

Also, seriously injured people can recover a considerable level of mobility thanks to the plastics and resins in orthopaedic devices. An invaluable material, plastics are yet cheap enough to be suitable for making disposable syringes, containers for storing blood and vaccines and other apparatus which are used only once to avoid the risk of contamination.

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