Snake venom in medicine
"Venom is a great source of original peptides with great therapeutic potential”, explained Patrick Jimonet, head of external opportunities at Sanofi, a statement that illustrates how great the beneficial potential of snake venoms is for medicine.
Since ancient times, venom has been known to hold therapeutic virtues, yet has never been accorded much attention by the pharmaceutical industry. At least, that is, until now. Research has been conducted into venom use in specific therapeutic areas that struggle to make headway using classic chemical molecules.
So could snake venom be the answer to some of the world’s medical mysteries? Well it’s actually already been proven – notably for treating arterial hypertension. Time will tell if we can continue to successfully develop it for treatments. With over 40 million different toxins known to exist in the world, produced by approximately 170,000 species, there’s a lot of work to do!