Warning: Forgeries!
Happily, my internship at the chemist’s is about to finish! Next week I’ll finally begin to work on my graduation thesis and tiding up drawers will be replaced by loading agarose gels: to state the obvious, things will improve dramatically. I’ve to make clear, once and for all, that working as a pharmacy assistant is one the most boring things I’ve ever done: you do silly preparations in a lab which looks like a kitchen when you’re lucky, because, otherwise, you spend your day taking care of the orders, putting the stuff on the shelves or in the drawers. And, even when you finally become a pharmacist, everything you studied at the university (pharmacology, for instance) is suddenly useless as you simply have to give customers what their physician prescribed and the important information you’ve to tell the patient appear on the computer as you read the barcode with your laser-pen.
Oh, and going back to the lab, as you’ll have noticed, a child would be perfectly able to make galenic preparations, given that, if the doctor didn’t write it, you’ll have to stick to some recipe with oddly no chance of bringing out your ingenuity at any time (although this might be the only improvement you experience in the transition from student/assistant to pharmacist, but it’s not needed so…).
Bored as I’ve been on this last week, I’ve literally wandered around the shop counting the days separating me from a real lab and a decent work. However, I’ve had the chance to read all the information posted for the employees and a note caught my attention: apparently, there are some forged prescriptions going around the area for a benzodiazepines called Nitrazepam, which is not available in the US, but, according to Wikipedia, is a pretty common BDZ of abuse in Sweden and England.
It shouldn’t be that difficult to realise it’s a forgery as you see it, to be honest: the name of doctor is Michele De Seenen and the patient is a bloke called Romulo Lindaoan. Obviously, if you aren’t Italian you can’t get it but let’s see if I can make everybody to understand: these names are clearly (badly) invented. Something like doctor Tom Fjbskedb and Mr. John Endjusyf (I closed my eyes and typed): totally meaningless, even if they were both immigrants from Weirdenia (and, in that case, they wouldn’t have Italian names, would they?).
Given that these prescriptions were pathetically faked, is the drug itself a forgery too? I mean: what are the features that make a benzodiazepine genuine? Well, let’s start with the BDZ backbone: this structure is the starting point for any derivative.
Of course halogens bound to C7 look more familiar than the nitro-group of nitrazepam but this actually increases the affinity of the drug for the receptor: you see this benzene strengthens the binding through its pi-cloud. As a result, the more electronegative the functional group, the tighter the bond.
Other modifications that don’t interfere with the activity of a BDZ are those on the carbonyl. This function, in fact, can be turned into a 1,2,4-triazole because this wouldn’t yield steric hindrance, due to the shape of the receptor.
The N1, moreover, can undergo alkylation, but, in this case, to avoid hindrance, only small groups can be employed: a t-But would abolish any activity.
Even for the double bond C5 – N4, changes are allowed, leading to pro-drugs.
