Making speciality chemicals

Chemicals such as medicines and pharmaceutical drugs are often made by a batch process. This means that they are made in small quantities as and when they are needed.

These speciality chemicals are made on a small scale compared with bulk chemicals such as ammonia which requite a large scale continuous process.

The raw materials for producing speciality chemicals are made

synthetically from labotary chemicals or from chemicals extracted from plants

We can extract chemicals from plants by 

crushing the plant

dissolving the crushed material in a suitable solvent

or using chromatography to seperate the required chemical

Develpment of a new medicine or pharmaceutical drug is expensive. The product may be on the market for many years before it pays the cost of its own develpment

things that affect the cost of medicine or a drug could be labour   energy (gas/electricity)    raw materials    development and legal   marketing    and testing on animals and humans