For instance, adderall, from what I’ve seen it looks like the main active ingredient is d-amphetamine and l-amphetamine salts. But I guess what I’m not understanding is HOW is THAT made? I am assuming amphetamine doesn’t naturally occur anywhere, (example. like a plant that’s grown and used to extract whatever out of.) So where are the active ingredients coming from? Or derived from? Do all medication ingredients essentially come from SOMETHING growing naturally the wild?
I’m sorry if this wasn’t asked correctly, basically I understand there’s people or machines in a lab creating and mixing ingredients to MAKE adderall, but where are these ingredients coming from?
In: Biology
Organic Chemistry (mostly)
Active ingredients are just molecules, some small, some large.
They all come from basic molecules and we learn to put them together with some chemical reactions.
Those molecules are created/synthesized from other basic smaller molecules with various other chemicals ingredients and processes.
Most of the time, larger molecules are created in steps with various intermediate molecules.
Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (API) are synthesized by organic chemists. The field of organic chemistry deals with using reactants (either things found in nature or otherwise also synthesized from simpler compounds) and complex chemistry to generate a final product. In the case of amphetamine, the synthesis is pretty simple and straightforward from an organic chemistry standpoint. The API is then mixed with ingredients called excipients in a V blender for solid dose formulations and pressed into a pill by a pill press. In the case of Adderall, extended release formulations use a different process. The API itself is usually the hardest part to make as it involves complex machinery and purification, and the formulation is easier but still challenging.
They’re generally synthesized by organic chemists. In the past more of them were derived from natural sources, like poppies for opium, willow for aspirin, etc. There are natural sources of amphetamines/precursors to them, for instance the ephedra plant native to Afghanistan is the source of most of their domestic meth production. In the west synthetic ephedrine is used to make meth.
[https://cen.acs.org/policy/global-health/Afghanistans-crystal-meth-boom-rooted/99/i13](https://cen.acs.org/policy/global-health/Afghanistans-crystal-meth-boom-rooted/99/i13)
In a lab, you can combine different chemicals or elements to form OTHER chemicals. Like, for example, to make hydrogen peroxide, you need hydrogen and oxygen. You add these together, in a specific way, with the addition of a catalyst, and after some refinement, you get hydrogen peroxide.
There is no fixed answer. Some ingredients are derived from recently grown plant materials, some are derived from minerals (ie different kind of rocks) mined from the ground, others are created from things like crude oil. Some can be extracted from animals. Others can be extracted from things like yeast, bacteria and algae that produce certain chemicals as byproducts.
Multiple processing steps are necessary, some ingredients from huge industrial factories like crude oil distillation or ore refining. Some from smaller factories like extracting plant materials. These raw materials can be sent to other labs to make other intermediate materials. Finally the actual compounds are made in specialized labs that buy these intermediate materials.
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