Impact of biotechnology in the diagnostic and therapeutic management of cardiovascular disorders.

Although biotechnology has been useful in the development of new diagnostic methods and drugs for the management of cardiovascular disorders, there are several issues which raise certain questions on the global use of biotechnology based drugs and diagnostic methods (Piascik, 1991; Fareed, 1993a; Fareed, 1994a). The cost is rather prohibitive in the development of this type of technology. Most diagnostic methods and drugs developed utilizing biotechnology based methods are relatively expensive. The second important consideration is the equivalence of the newer biotechnology derived drugs to the natural products. Many of the biotechnology derived drugs are obtained in prokaryotic systems (E. coli). Post-transcriptional modifications such as glycosylation are often important in determining the function of various proteins. On the other hand, biotechnology based diagnostic methods exhibit somewhat different specificity in comparison to conventional methods. Thus, it is rather important to assess the developments in this area in a careful manner. Furthermore, validation of the clinical, diagnostic and therapeutic efficacy of biotechnology derived diagnostic devices and drugs is a prerequisite for their use in cardiovascular medicine.