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  Phase II Drug Metabolism

  This article explains what Phase II drug metabolism is, contains a poster summarizing common enzyme-mediated bioconjugation reactions, and provides interesting examples of Phase II transformations and their impact on drug pharmacology. “As any biotransformation scientist will know, metabolism is not a binary function, and drugs can be cleared through multiple mechanisms,” says Dr. Julia Shanu-Wilson…

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  What Makes a Drug Best-in-Class?

  How a Follow-on Drug Can Create Value After a First-in-Class Drug Novel drugs can make a big impact in two main ways—by being first-in-class (FIC) or by being best-in-class (BIC). A novel drug that produces its therapeutic effect by interacting with a new target or that is used to treat a new condition is considered…

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  Minimum Viable Experiments with Imperfect Molecules: a Minipump Minireview

  Optimizing lead compounds to have drug candidate-like qualities are time-consuming and expensive. Oftentimes, critical drug discovery project questions, such as on-target pharmacology or toxicology, can be answered more efficiently with compounds that are “good enough,” saving teams time and further resource investment. This article discusses tools and strategies available to get desired in vivo pharmacology…

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  Why pKas Matter in Medicinal Chemistry and a Drug Discovery Amine pKa Table

  In this article, we highlight the importance of pKa values in medicinal chemistry and drug discovery and provide a reference poster of pKa values of common amines’ conjugate bases. Since amines are often a part of marketed drugs, knowledge of their pKas can provide guidance in the selection of basic moieties to match the desired…

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  An Introduction to Fragment-Based Drug Discovery (FBDD)

  In this minireview, Dr. Romyr Dominique introduces three key concepts in fragment-based drug discovery and shares his favorite articles and resources on fragment-based drug discovery. Fragment-based drug discovery has emerged as a key tool for acquiring starting points for challenging targets like KRAS. By Dr. Romyr Dominique What is FBDD, or Fragment-Based Drug Discovery? Although…

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  AICs and PAINS: Mechanisms of Assay Interference

  In this minireview, Drs. Jayme L. Dahlin and Michael A. Walters summarize the different mechanisms by which molecules can be AICs (assay interference compounds), a subset of which can be flagged as PAINS (pan-assay interference compounds) by a popular set of substructure filters. They bin these into non-technology-related interference mechanisms (e.g. nonspecific reactivity, surfactants, aggregation..)…