Natural product to modern discovery of their active ingredients and eventually to the development of new drugs. A large number of currently prescribed drugs have been either directly derived from or inspired by natural products. A few representative examples are listed below. Some of the oldest natural product based drugs are analgesics. The bark of the willow tree has been known from antiquity to have pain relieving properties. This is due to presence of the natural product salicin which in turn may be hydrolyzed into salicylic acid. A synthetic derivative acetylsalicylic acid better known as aspirin is a widely used pain reliever.
Pamoic acid Pamoic acid Pamoic acid, also called embonic acid, is a naphthoic acid derivative. Salts and esters of pamoic acid are known as pamoates or embonates. It can be prepared by the reaction of 2-hydroxy-3-naphthoic acid with formaldehyde. In pharmacology, the salt form of pamoic acid (pamoate ion) can be used as a counterion of a drug compound to affect the dissolution rate of the drug. The presence of multiple oxygen atoms enables significant hydrogen bonding to occur. Hydrogen bonds facilitate the dissolution of compounds in water. Pharmaceutical drugs formulated this way include cycloguanil pamoate, hydroxyzine pamoate, imipramine pamoate, olanzapine pamoate