Drug compounds development

The main reasons for the popularity of the Caco-2 cell line are that the cells are easy to maintain in culture, and they develop unusually high degree of differentiation spontaneously under standard culture conditions. In fact, Caco-2 is the only human intestinal cell line that has been found so far spontaneously to undergo functional enterocytic differentiation. The cells exhibit a good reproducibility, robustness and functional properties of human intestinal epithelial cells. The model has proved capable of predicting the oral absorption of a variety of drug compounds [see references in 10]. 

Binding affinities of the new flexible synthetic glycocluster toward type-1-piliated E. coli were evaluated by HAI and bladder-binding assay (BBA). The results indicated that, with an inhibition of bacterial bladder-cell binding at 12 nM ( 6000- and 64-fold lower than mannose and 59, respectively), the tetravalent compound 60 is currently one of the most promising antiadhesive drugs under development for the treatment of urinary tract infections. 

Within various pharmaceutical laboratories (industrial and academic), the mul-tinuclear technique of solid state NMR has primarily been applied to the study of polymorphism at the qualitative and quantitative levels. Although the technique ideally lends itself to the structure determination of drug compounds in the solid state, it is anticipated that in the future, solid state NMR will become routinely used for method development and problem solving activities in the analytical/materials science/physical pharmacy area of the pharmaceutical sciences. During the past few years, an increasing number of publications have emerged in which solid state NMR has become an invaluable technique. With the continuing development of solid state NMR pulse sequences and hardware improvements (increased sensitivity), solid state NMR will provide a wealth of information for the physical characterization of pharmaceutical solids. 

Combretastatins are a class of compounds originally derived from the African Willow tree (Combretum caffrum) and are powerful reversible inhibitors of tubulin polymerization. This class of molecules has been shown to bind to the colchicine binding site of tubulin, by the same mode of action as mentioned above (Sect. 1.2). Combretastatins consist of a ris-slilbcnc core structure. To date, there have been several compounds that have shown promise as potential anticancer drugs. However, development of these compounds as anticancer agents is limited by issues of chemical stability, bioavailibilty, toxicity, and solubility. 

Following the synthesis of the sodium, potassium, and succinic acid esters of CA-4, which were not soluble in water [35], CA-4P (9), the disodium phosphate pro-drug was developed and is currently in phase II of clinical trials [36]. CA-4P is a promising candidate for combination anti-cancer therapy because it is inactive as a phosphate but is rapidly hydrolyzed in vivo to the active CA-4, 7 compound [31,37]. 

The first step in the development of a new dissolution test is to evaluate the relevant physical and chemical data for the drug substance. Knowledge of the drug compound s physical-chemical properties will facilitate the selection of dissolution medium and determination of medium volume. 

Chemical development and scale-up synthesis of drug compound... 

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