Pharmokinetics

High Content Screening – Emerging importance of novel reagents/probes and pathway analysis By Dr John Comley The number of high content screens will increase by 50% over the coming year; signal pathway analysis was seen as the most relevant high content screening (HCS) application; with greatest interest in applying HCS coming from oncology groups. Novel […]

Computer-aided design: progress towards more rational drug discovery By Dr Wolfgang H.B. Sauer Drug discovery is a science, a craft and an art, and often it requires a fair amount of serendipity or plain luck to succeed. Success is rare and costly, as evidenced by numerous reports and reviews (1,2). In its quest for success, […]

Nanotechnology approaches to solving the problems of poorly water-soluble drugs By Dr Roghieh Saffie-Siebert, Dr Jill Ogden and Dr Mark Parry-Billings Traditionally, almost half of new molecular entities identified by pharmaceutical industry screening programmes have failed to be developed because of poor water-solubility, which makes their formulation difficult or even impossible. However, important advances are […]

Exposure response modelling a safe and profitable way to speed drugs to market By Dr Gregory Fisher and Dr Arthur L. Craigmill The applicability of physiologically-based pharmacokinetic modelling (PBPK) far exceeds that of classical PK in predictive pharmacokinetics, tissue dosimetry, drug efficacy, and drug safety. This in silico technique, in conjunction with in vitro and […]

The search for validated biomarkers in the face of biosystems complexity By Professor Ian Humphery-Smith and Will Dracup As the pharmaceutical industry is all too well aware, the genomics and postgenomic sciences have delivered an excessive number of drug targets few of which have been well validated. Indeed, apart from a few rare exceptions, genomics […]

The Impact of RNAi on Drug Discovery By Dr Christopher P. Miller RNAi (RNA interference) is an important target validation tool that has risen to prominence since 2001. For a number of reasons, it has supplanted other pre-existing target validation tools and is now the method of choice for target validation in cell culture systems. […]

The Use and Usefulness of Transgenic Systems in the Discovery of New Medicines By Professor Jan Tornell The pharmaceutical industry is faced with the challenge to deliver truly novel medicines to a market under financial pressure when pharmaceutical R&D becomes increasingly difficult and complex. This review will mainly focus on how transgenic systems can help […]

Label-Free Detection – New biosensors facilitate broader range of drug discovery applications By Dr John Comley This article highlights some of the findings of a recent market report on labelfree detection trends. In particular, it looks at the current perception, main use and biggest benefit of label-free detection today. It considers the potential of label-free […]

GENE EXPRESSION as a toxicological screening tool By Dr Bruce Seligmann The use of microarray data in drug development and requirements for FDA audit and approval. Toxicological safety testing of compounds has not yet advanced to the point where measurement of gene expression is being incorporated in the internal decision process of most companies, much […]

The impact of early ADME profiling on drug discovery and development strategy By Dr Jianling Wang and Dr Laszlo Urban The increased costs in the discovery and development of new drugs, due in part to the high attrition rate of drug candidates in development, has led to a new strategy to introduce early, parallel evaluation […]