Seda’s DMPK consultancy offering recognises the vital importance of understanding the drug metabolism and pharmacokinetic (DMPK) properties of compounds to identify candidate molecules with suitable properties for development such as:
- Human dose that is realistic to develop
- Will remain in the body for long enough / or activity will last long enough so that patient dosing does not have to be too frequent
- Manageable interaction profile with other drugs the patient will be taking
In silico tools, in vitro assays and in vivo pharmacokinetic (PK) studies are used to characterise compound attributes in terms of absorption, distribution, metabolism, and excretion (ADME). This information, combined with data from in vitro pharmacology assays or in vivo pharmacodynamic / efficacy studies, can be used to predict human therapeutic doses. This process, in conjunction with additional studies designed to identify potential DMPK liabilities, can be used to select the best compound for development.
Seda offer a DMPK consultancy service including:
- Advice on compound profiling at all stages of drug discovery
- Identification of issues and compound ranking
- Analysis of data and linking compound performance to molecule design
- Compound design to overcome DMPK issues while maintaining activity (multiparameter optimisation)
- Characterisation of compound absorption, distribution, metabolism, and excretion attributes
– including design of bespoke in vitro and in vivo studies to answer the specific compound questions - Interpretation and scaling of pre-clinical PK data facilitating prediction of human PK profiles
- Human dose predictions
- Identification of compound liabilities and performing risk assessments
- Selection of appropriate vendors and data providers
Why DMPK is fundamental to the drug discovery process:
Sufficient exposure in pre-clinical species must be achieved to test pharmacological hypotheses and toxicity, as well as providing confidence that the drug will deliver the desired therapeutic exposure. Certain attributes or liabilities can heavily influence compound selection, and these should be put into context with knowledge of the target patient population and likely co-medications. Cross discipline collaboration with medicinal chemistry (compound design), pharmacology (delivery of desired pharmacological effect), toxicology (drug safety), pharmaceutical sciences (drug delivery) and service providers (quality data) is key to the discovery of compounds with suitable developability profiles.
Typical Questions that Seda’s DMPK Consultancy Service Can Help to Answer:
| How good is my molecule? |
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| What do I need to build a human dose prediction? |
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| How can I improve the PK profile of the compound? |
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| What are the main liabilities of the compound? |
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Why choose Seda?
Seda’s team of experts has several years of experience of DMPK across large pharma and biotech assisting in the design and delivery of numerous candidate drugs. Seda has an established network of service providers that can deliver high quality data and can leverage in-house modelling and simulation expertise to understand and predict compound performance in vivo.
