Novartis has launched an interactive exhibition that showcases the role played by nature in the history of medicine.

Beautiful Medicine is a slick 'digital exhibition' that highlights the way natural substances have been used in medicines development and what the future could hold for this area of research.

For example, Novartis is currently cataloguing and experimenting with approximately 15,000 natural products as part of its efforts to screen their responses when added to diseased cells.

These responses are then examined the biological target of the natural compound as part of work to see which cellular protein it binds to and therefore which protein most likely plays a role in the disease.

Novartis is one of the few big pharmaceutical companies still involved in 'bioprospection' - developing new products based on existing biological resources. In pursuit of possible treatments for narcolepsy the Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research has identified a class of compounds that temporarily blocks a receptor involved with regulating wakefulness - the starting point for which was its work on ergoline alkaloids, a class of natural products synthesized by fungi.

Another firm active in this space is Pharma Mar, whose marine-derived antitumoral agent Yondelis (trabectedin) received US approval last month to treat unresectable or metastic liposarcoma or leiomyosarcoma.

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