Emerging biotechnology applications in natural product and synthetic pharmaceutical analyses

Pharmaceutical analysis is a discipline based on chemical, physical, biological, and information technologies. At present, biotechnological analysis is a short branch in pharmaceutical analysis; however, bioanalysis is the basis and an important part of medicine. Biotechnological approaches can provide information on biological activity and even clinical efficacy and safety, which are important characteristics of drug quality. Because of their advantages in reflecting the overall biological effects or functions of drugs and providing visual and intuitive results, some biotechnological analysis methods have been gradually applied to pharmaceutical analysis from raw material to manufacturing and final product analysis, including DNA super-barcoding, DNA-based rapid detection, multiplex ligation-dependent probe amplification, hyperspectral imaging combined with artificial intelligence, 3D biologically printed organoids, omics-based artificial intelligence, microfluidic chips, organ-on-a-chip, signal transduction pathway-related reporter gene assays, and the zebrafish thrombosis model. The applications of these emerging biotechniques in pharmaceutical analysis have been discussed in this review.