Focused drug discovery

To focus drug discovery toward effective and orally adsorbable compounds, properties considered are usually related to Absorption, Distribution, Metabolism, Excretion ADME properties). 

Heilker, R., Wolff, M., Tautermaim, G.S., and Bieler, M. (2009) G-protein-coupled receptor-focused drug discovery using a target class platform approach. Drug Discovery Today, 14, 231-240. 

Stevens, J.L., Baker, T.K. (2009). The future of drug safety testing expanding the view and narrowing the focus. Drug Discovery Today, 14, 162-167. 

This chapter is written for a medicinal chemistry audience. The focus is on the importance of drug solubility in water and in dimethylsulfoxide (DMSO) in the types of activities likely to be of interest to medicinal chemists. The emphasis is on the discovery stage as opposed to the development stage. The reader will find numerous generalizations and rules of thumb relating to solubility in a drug discovery setting. 

From an early drug discovery and hit triage perspective, a simplification that is typically made is to focus initially on CYP metabolism that occurs in the fiver. This simplification is appropriate for the majority of compounds - some compounds will be cleared by other mechanisms, but it is generally assumed that they must be relatively stable to CYP metabolism to achieve a desirable PK profile. 

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