This is the third of a three-part series on Thermo Fisher Scientific’s analytical instrument solutions for metabolite identification in the small molecule drug development process. To catch up on parts one and two, see the links below.
Why MetID is so important
Metabolite identification (MetID) is a crucial and integral part of drug discovery and development. In this context, metabolism describes the breakdown and conversion of xenobiotics into molecules that can be excreted from the body. However, rapid metabolism reduces the duration and potential efficacy of pharmaceuticals, so in early drug discovery stages, metabolic profiling is employed to identify metabolic soft spots to inform optimization of lead compounds to attain desired pharmacokinetics. Additionally, metabolic profiling plays a critical role in evaluating the safety of the molecule, as in some cases the intermediates in the drug metabolism can have toxic effects.
MetID requires the proper tools
Although this is a critical part of the drug development process, having improper tools to assess drug metabolism can lead to serious and costly implications during clinical phases and, ultimately, to no commercial product. Fortunately, there are fit for purpose and advanced tools to avoid any pitfalls related to improper MetID assessment.
Along with NMR, the predominant tool for identification of drug biotransformation products is liquid chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry (LC-MS). However, not all LC-MS instrumentations can provide sensitive and meaningful data to provide crucial information for structure elucidation, enabling identification of the site of metabolism. Additionally, advanced data processing software tools are crucial to allow proper metabolite identification.
Read the whitepaper
In this whitepaper, Increased confidence in drug metabolite identification through intelligent data acquisition strategies and multiple fragmentation techniques on the Orbitrap Tribrid MS platform, Hackbusch et al. demonstrate the benefits of using advanced acquisition strategies, multistage fragmentation (MSn) and orthogonal fragmentation techniques to increase confidence in drug metabolite identification.
Related information
Blog Part 1 of 3: Speed up Drug Development Process With Fit-for-Purpose Metabolite Identification Solutions
Blog Part 2 of 3: Advanced LC-MS Tools and Software Solutions to Ease Your Metabolite Identification Challenges
Blog: Metabolite Identification Solutions Showcased at Great Lakes DMDG 2024 Meeting
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