ORIENTAL JOURNAL OF CHEMISTRY www.orientjchem.org An International Open Free Access, Peer Reviewed Research Journal ISSN: 0970-020 X CODEN: OJCHEG 2016, Vol. 32, No. (2): Pg. 1265-1269 Miniaturization In Rational Drug Design of Pharmaceuticals : A Review GHAZALA YASMEEN, MOHD. IBRAHIM 1 , V.MURLI BALRAM 2 , S.IMAM PASHA 3 , SADAF RAHMAN and MOHSINA ABID 1 Prof. & Principal, Nizam Institute Of Pharmacy, Nalgonda T.S India. 2 Hod, Department Of Pharmaceutical Analysis & Quality Assurance, 3 Asst. Professor Department of Pharmaceutical Analysis & Quality Assurance, Sultan-Ul-Uloom College of Pharmacy, Banjara Hills, Hyderabad-500034, TS, India. *Corresponding author E.mail: impazam@gmail.com http://dx.doi.org/10.13005/ojc/320254 (Received: November 26, 2015; Accepted: December 30, 2015) ABSTRACT Miniaturization in High Throughput Screening (HTS) is perceived as essential by pharmaceutical screening laboratories to accommodate the enormous increase in compounds and targets over the past few years. The two primary goals are to increase throughput while decreasing costs. The ability to perform primary screening assays in high-density micro-well plates at volumes of 1–2μl will accelerate the early stages of drug discovery. Ultra-HTS (uHTS) assays require an accurate and reliable means of fluid handling in the submicroliter volume range. This relates to the design of instrumentation for dispensing fluids, as well as assay plates. Fluid handling has been a major obstacle to the full implementation of miniaturized assays. This report focuses on current approaches to submicroliter fluid handling in high-density multi-well plates. Keywords: Miniaturization, Drug design, pharmaceuticals. INTRODUCTION In early phases of development, only small amounts of the active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) are available. With difficult drugs however, many different formulations are necessary to achieve adequate bioavailability. Therefore, low API consumption for each formulation creates a substantial developmental advantage. This can be achieved by miniaturized equipment for the most relevant pharmaceutical technologies. Until a few years ago, the commercially available equipment required minimal batch sizes of 50 – 100 g for nearly all formulation technologies. Number of small scale equipment increased considerably in the meantime, but in most cases, the basic technologies are still designed for large scales, only the formulation part is smaller. Therefore, this equipment is still very expensive, heavy, and requires a lot of lab space and cannot be located easily into containments which is necessary for toxic or highly active APIs. Therefore, miniaturized equipment for the most