Drug development distribution

The partition coefficient and aqueous solubility are properties important for the study of the adsorption, distribution, metabolism, excretion, and toxicity (ADME-Tox) of drugs. The prediction of the ADME-Tox properties of drug candidates has recently attracted much interest because these properties account for the failure of about 60 % of all drug candidates in the clinical phases. The prediction of these properties in an early phase of the drug development process could therefore lead to significant savings in research and development costs. 

Historically, drug absorption, distribution, metabolism, excretion, and toxicity ADMET) studies in animal models were performed after the identification of a lead compound. In order to avoid costs, nowadays pharmaceutical companies evaluate the ADMET profiles of potential leads at an earlier stage of the development... 

Physiologically based pharmacokinetic models provide a format to analyze relationships between model parameters and physicochemical properties for a series of drug analogues. Quantitative structure-pharmacokinetic relationships based on PB-PK model parameters have been pursued [12,13] and may ultimately prove useful in the drug development process. In this venue, such relationships, through predictions of tissue distribution, could expedite drug design and discovery. 

The termination of fialuridine and torcetrapib can be considered as worst case scenarios in drug development. In over 50% of all cases, project termination occurs due to less spectacular reasons such as a lack of efficacy or liberation-absorption-distribution-metabolism-excretion (LADME) problems (Figure 1.4) [65]. 

The development of combinatorial chemistry and high throughput screening programmes has stimulated efforts to find experimental and computational models to estimate and predict drug absorption, distribution, metabolism and elimination based on drug physicochemical properties. 

The use of capillary electrophoresis (CE) during the synthetic drug development is described from the preclinical development phase to the final marketed stage. The chapter comprises the determination of physicochemical properties, such as acid—base dissociation constants (pKJ, octanol—water distribution coefficients (logP), and analysis of pharmaceutical counterions and functional excipients. 

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