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A large number of drugs are introduced each year to treat different diseases. Most of the time, patients suffer from more than one health problem which makes it necessary to take multiple drugs. When drugs are combined, the problem of drug-drug interaction becomes relevant. In this work, we studied the drug-drug interaction between escitalopram and ibuprofen or paracetamol using density functional theory and quantum theory of atoms in molecules. The results suggest that following the interactions, the activity of drugs changes according to site of interaction. Most reactive and most stable interactions would be preferable for the purpose of use. The in silico drug-likeness studies show that escitalopram and paracetamol couple is more bioavailable than escitalopram and ibuprofen couple. Moreover, in order to gain additional insights into the mentioned drugs' interactions, the drugs were docked separately and jointly against the potential targets for antidepressants and NSAIDs, namely 6HIS and 2PXX . The molecular docking results showed a potential improvement of the effectiveness of the drugs after combining by forming hydrogen bonds, hydrophobic contacts and π…π stacking.Communicated by Ramaswamy H. Sarma.

One of the approaches adopted, as the first treatment method, in previous pandemic viruses before the production of new vaccines or drugs, is to evaluate the effectiveness of existing drugs. Sometimes, it is known that the combination of drugs provides better treatment by increasing the activity of the drugs due to mutual interactions. In this work, we used quantum theory of atoms in molecules and density functional theory to examine the structure and activity relationship between Favipiravir (FPV), a potential antiviral drug for ribonucleic acid viruses, and an inhibitor of influenza virus, and Ibuprofen (IBP), a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug. The drug-likeness evaluations of IBP…FPV were also performed. It was observed that FPV and IBP interact in several ways via hydrogen bonding (HB) leading to changes in the activities of the combined drug and IBP…FPV is predicted to be orally bioavailable. It was also found that the highest occupied molecular orbital (HOMO) is located on IBP and the lowest unoccupied molecular orbital (LUMO) is distributed over FPV. The biological activity of the combined drug system is increased because of the small HOMO-LUMO energy gap value, partially covalent and non-covalent HB interactions.Communicated by Ramaswamy H. Sarma.