A new method to test the likelihood of a drug turning into a potentially harmful version of itself when it enters the body has been developed by researchers at Cardiff University.
In collaboration with Liverpool John Moores University and AstraZeneca, the team have developed a simple approach to trawl through large databases of pharmaceutical drugs and assess the likely risk of a drug undergoing racremisation – a process in which a drug flips into a mirror image of itself and becomes either inert or potentially dangerous.
It is the first time that a quantitative risk assessment tool for this process has been developed.
Publishing their new findings in the journal Angewandte Chemie, the team believe the new method could potentially lead to a significant reduction in the financial risk associated with drug development by identifying at-risk drug candidates early on in the production process, eventually leading to the efficient development of safe medication.
Drug compounds often exist in either a right- or left-handed form, with both forms having an identical chemical composition but a structure that is a non-superimposable mirror image of one another. These compounds, known as enantiomers, are much like our right and left hands – they have the same structure that completely mirrors one another, but it is impossible to perfectly fit one on top of the other with both palms facing up.
Drugs can contain both right- and left-hand versions of a compound, but often only one of a drug's enantiomers is responsible for the desired physiologic effects, while the other enantiomer is less active, inactive, or can sometimes produce adverse effects.
A new method to test the likelihood of a drug turning into a potentially harmful version of itself when it enters the body has been developed by researchers at Cardiff University.
In collaboration with Liverpool John Moores University and AstraZeneca, the team have developed a simple approach to trawl through large databases of pharmaceutical drugs and assess the likely risk of a drug undergoing racremisation – a process in which a drug flips into a mirror image of itself and becomes either inert or potentially dangerous.
It is the first time that a quantitative risk assessment tool for this process has been developed.
Publishing their new findings in the journal Angewandte Chemie, the team believe the new method could potentially lead to a significant reduction in the financial risk associated with drug development by identifying at-risk drug candidates early on in the production process, eventually leading to the efficient development of safe medication.
Drug compounds often exist in either a right- or left-handed form, with both forms having an identical chemical composition but a structure that is a non-superimposable mirror image of one another. These compounds, known as enantiomers, are much like our right and left hands – they have the same structure that completely mirrors one another, but it is impossible to perfectly fit one on top of the other with both palms facing up.
Drugs can contain both right- and left-hand versions of a compound, but often only one of a drug's enantiomers is responsible for the desired physiologic effects, while the other enantiomer is less active, inactive, or can sometimes produce adverse effects.
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