Current Pharmaceutical Design - Volume 15, Issue 19, 2009

Efficacy in preclinical models alone is insufficient for advancing compounds to drug development. This fact has led to the incorporation of drug metabolism and pharmacokinetics (DMPK) as one of the key components along with medicinal chemistry and biology during the lead optimization and characterization processes. Exploratory DMPK plays a key role in the drug discovery paradigm by assisting in selecting and designin Read More

Pharmacokinetics has been recognized as one of the elements determining the probability of success in pharmaceutical research. As a result, compounds are routinely evaluated in drug discovery for their absorption, distribution, metabolism and elimination properties. The primary objective of these studies is to eliminate “flawed” molecules or a structural class based on preset selection criteria, while building a kno Read More

The pharmaceutical industry is facing an ever increasing challenge to deliver safer and more effective medicines. Traditionally, drug discovery programs were driven solely by potency, regardless of the properties. As a result, the development of non-drug-like molecules was costly, had high risk and low success rate. To meet the challenges, the bar has been rising higher for drug candidates. They not only need to be active, b Read More

The high attrition rate in drug development and the deteriorated drug ability as a result of the shifted chemical space of new therapeutic target for unmet medical needs have posed drastic challenges in current drug discovery. It has triggered the strategic transition in the past decade into parallel assessment of efficacy and comprehensive ADMET (absorption, distribution, metabolism, elimination and toxicity) properties of Read More

Drug metabolism and pharmacokinetics (DMPK) represents a critical component in support of drug discovery and development. This is because the therapeutic efficacy of a drug is dependent on its exposure which in turn is dictated in part by metabolic stability of the molecule. In addition, drug metabolism may lead to the formation of metabolites that can either be pharmacologically active or elicit adverse effect. On this basis, Read More

Prodrugs are inactive compounds which are metabolized either chemically or enzymatically in a controlled or predictable manner to the parent active drug inside the body. Prodrugs can enhance the therapeutic efficacy and/or reduce adverse effects via different mechanisms, including increased solubility, improved permeability and bioavailability, prolonged half-life, and tissue-targeted delivery. Besides the prodrug itself Read More

The advances in high-speed synthesis technologies have produced a large number of biologically active new chemical entities (NCEs) for developability assessment. Current drug discovery efforts have been focused on identifying drug metabolism and pharmacokinetic (DMPK) issues at the earliest possible stage in order to reduce the attrition rate of drug candidates during the development phase. Mass spectrometry (M Read More

The rising costs and time associated with bringing new medicines to the market have created a need for a new paradigm for reducing the attrition rates of drug candidates in both preclinical and clinical development stages. Early appraisal of drug metabolism and pharmacokinetic (DMPK) parameters is now possible due to several higher throughput in vitro and in vivo screens. This knowledge of DMPK properties should not Read More