An integrated overview of modern approaches to lead discovery Lead generation is increasingly seen as a distinct and success-determining phase of the drug discovery process. Over recent years, there have been major advances in the understanding of what constitutes a good lead compound and how to improve the chances of finding such a compound. Written by leading scientists and established opinion leaders from industry and academia, this book provides an authoritative overview of the field, as well as the theory, practice, and scope, of the principal Lead Generation Approaches in Drug Discovery, including: The evolution of the lead discovery process, key concepts, current challenges, and future directions Strategies and technologies driving the high-throughput screening (HTS) approach to lead discovery, including the shifting paradigms in the design of compound collections and best practice in the hit confirmation process Knowledge-based in silico or "virtual" screening Theory and practice of the fragment-based approach to lead discovery The opportunities and challenges presented by multi-target drug discovery (MTDD) De novo design of lead compounds and new approaches to estimating the synthetic accessibility of de novo–designed molecules The impact of natural products on drug discovery, and potential of natural product–like compounds for exploring regions of biologically relevant chemical space Using early screening of hits and leads for metabolic, pharmacokinetic, and toxicological liabilities to reduce attrition during the later phases of drug discovery The utility of parallel synthesis and purification in lead discovery With each topic supported by numerous case studies, this is indispensable reading for researchers in industry and academia who wish to keep up to date with the latest strategies and approaches in drug discovery.

In this comprehensive two-volume resource on the topic senior lead generation medicinal chemists present a coherent view of the current methods and strategies in industrial and academic lead generation. This is the first book to combine both standard and innovative approaches in comparable breadth and depth, including several recent successful lead generation case studies published here for the first time. Beginning with a general discussion of the underlying principles and strategies, individual lead generation approaches are described in detail, highlighting their strengths and weaknesses, along with all relevant bordering disciplines like e.g. target identification and validation, predictive methods, molecular recognition or lead quality matrices. Novel lead generation approaches for challenging targets like DNA-encoded library screening or chemical biology approaches are treated here side by side with established methods as high throughput and affinity screening, knowledge- or fragment-based lead generation, and collaborative approaches. Within the entire book, a very strong focus is given to highlight the application of the presented methods, so that the reader will be able to learn from real life examples. The final part of the book presents several lead generation case studies taken from different therapeutic fields, including diabetes, cardiovascular and respiratory diseases, neuroscience, infection and tropical diseases. The result is a prime knowledge resource for medicinal chemists and for every scientist involved in lead generation.

In this comprehensive two-volume resource on the topic senior lead generation medicinal chemists present a coherent view of the current methods and strategies in industrial and academic lead generation. This is the first book to combine both standard and innovative approaches in comparable breadth and depth, including several recent successful lead generation case studies published here for the first time. Beginning with a general discussion of the underlying principles and strategies, individual lead generation approaches are described in detail, highlighting their strengths and weaknesses, along with all relevant bordering disciplines like e.g. target identification and validation, predictive methods, molecular recognition or lead quality matrices. Novel lead generation approaches for challenging targets like DNA-encoded library screening or chemical biology approaches are treated here side by side with established methods as high throughput and affinity screening, knowledge- or fragment-based lead generation, and collaborative approaches. Within the entire book, a very strong focus is given to highlight the application of the presented methods, so that the reader will be able to learn from real life examples. The final part of the book presents several lead generation case studies taken from different therapeutic fields, including diabetes, cardiovascular and respiratory diseases, neuroscience, infection and tropical diseases. The result is a prime knowledge resource for medicinal chemists and for every scientist involved in lead generation.

This volume gives an overview of state of the art technologies and future developments in the field of preclinical pharmaceutical research. A balanced mix of experts from academia and industry give insight in selected new developments in the drug discovery pathway. The topics cover the different parts of the drug discovery process, starting with new developments in the target identification and validation area. The lead generation part as a next step focuses on the requirements and technologies to identify new small molecules as lead compounds for further optimization; in a second section the technologies to identify biologics as leads are addressed. The final part focuses on the pharmacological models and technologies to characterize new compounds and the impact of biomarkers to facilitate the transfer of drug candidates into the development phase.

There are numerous excellent reviews on fragment-based drug discovery (FBDD), but there are to date no hand-holding guides or protocols with which one can embark on this orthogonal approach to complement traditional high throughput screening methodologies. This Methods in Enzymology volume offers the tools, practical approaches, and hit-to-lead examples on how to conduct FBDD screens. The chapters in this volume cover methods that have proven to be successful in generating leads from fragments, including chapters on how to apply computational techniques, nuclear magnetic resonance, surface plasma resonance, thermal shift and binding assays, protein crystallography, and medicinal chemistry in FBDD. Also elaborated by experienced researchers in FBDD are sample preparations of fragments, proteins, and GPCR as well as examples of how to generate leads from hits. Offers the tools, practical approaches, and hit-to-lead examples on how to conduct FBDD screens The chapters in this volume cover methods that have proven to be successful in generating leads from fragments, including chapters on how to apply computational techniques, nuclear magnetic resonance, surface plasma resonance, thermal shift and binding assays, protein crystallography, and medicinal chemistry in FBDD

Fragment-based drug discovery (FBDD) is a new paradigm in drug discovery that utilizes very small molecules - fragments of larger molecules. It is a faster, cheaper, smarter way to do drug discovery, as shown by the number of pharmaceutical companies that have embraced this approach and the biotechnology companies who use fragments as their sole source of drug discovery. Fragment-Based Drug Discovery: A Practical Approach is a guide to the techniques and practice of using fragments in drug screening. The emphasis is on practical guidance, with procedures, case studies, practical tips, and contributions from industry. Topics covered include: an introduction to fragment based drug discovery, why using fragments is a more efficient process than predominant models, and what it means to have a successful FBDD effort. setting up an FBDD project library building and production NMR in fragment screening and follow up application of protein-ligand NOE matching to the rapid evaluation of fragment binding poses target immobilized NMR screening: validation and extension to membrane proteins in situ fragment-based medicinal chemistry: screening by mass spectrometry computational approaches to fragment and substructure discovery and evaluation virtual fragment scanning: current trends, applications and web based tools fragment-based lead discovery using covalent capture methods case study from industry: the identification of high affinity beta-secretase inhibitors using fragment-based lead generation With contributions from industry experts who have successfully set up an industrial fragment-based research program, Fragment-Based Drug Discovery: A Practical Approach offers essential advice to anyone embarking on drug discovery using fragments and those looking for a new approach to screening for drugs.

This book brings together drug design practitioners, all leaders in their field, who are actively advancing the field of quantitative methods to guide drug discovery, from structure-based design to empirical statistical models - from rule-based approaches to toxicology to the fields of bioinformatics and systems biology. The aim of the book is to show how various facets of the drug discovery process can be addressed in a quantitative fashion (ie: numerical analysis to enable robust predictions to be made). Each chapter includes a brief review of the topic showing the historical development of.

Basic Principles of Drug Discovery and Development presents the multifaceted process of identifying a new drug in the modern era, which requires a multidisciplinary team approach with input from medicinal chemists, biologists, pharmacologists, drug metabolism experts, toxicologists, clinicians, and a host of experts from numerous additional fields. Enabling technologies such as high throughput screening, structure-based drug design, molecular modeling, pharmaceutical profiling, and translational medicine are critical to the successful development of marketable therapeutics. Given the wide range of disciplines and techniques that are required for cutting edge drug discovery and development, a scientist must master their own fields as well as have a fundamental understanding of their collaborator's fields. This book bridges the knowledge gaps that invariably lead to communication issues in a new scientist's early career, providing a fundamental understanding of the various techniques and disciplines required for the multifaceted endeavor of drug research and development. It provides students, new industrial scientists, and academics with a basic understanding of the drug discovery and development process. The fully updated text provides an excellent overview of the process and includes chapters on important drug targets by class, in vitro screening methods, medicinal chemistry strategies in drug design, principles of in vivo pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics, animal models of disease states, clinical trial basics, and selected business aspects of the drug discovery process. - Provides a clear explanation of how the pharmaceutical industry works, as well as the complete drug discovery and development process, from obtaining a lead, to testing the bioactivity, to producing the drug, and protecting the intellectual property - Includes a new chapter on the discovery and development of biologics (antibodies proteins, antibody/receptor complexes, antibody drug conjugates), a growing and important area of the pharmaceutical industry landscape - Features a new section on formulations, including a discussion of IV formulations suitable for human clinical trials, as well as the application of nanotechnology and the use of transdermal patch technology for drug delivery - Updated chapter with new case studies includes additional modern examples of drug discovery through high through-put screening, fragment-based drug design, and computational chemistry

This book brings together drug design practitioners, all leaders in their field, who are actively advancing the field of quantitative methods to guide drug discovery, from structure-based design to empirical statistical models - from rule-based approaches to toxicology to the fields of bioinformatics and systems biology. The aim of the book is to show how various facets of the drug discovery process can be addressed in a quantitative fashion (ie: numerical analysis to enable robust predictions to be made). Each chapter includes a brief review of the topic showing the historical development of quantitative approaches, a survey/summary of the current state-of-the-art, a selection of well chosen examples with some worked through and an appreciation of what problems remain to be overcome as well as an indication of how the field may develop. After an overview of quantitative approaches to drug design the book describes the development of concepts of "drug-like properties", of quantitative structure-activity relationships and molecular modelling, and in particular, structure-based design approaches to guide lead optimisation. How to manage and describe chemical structures, underpins all quantitative approaches to drug design and these are described in the following chapters. The next chapter covers the value of a quantitative approach, and also the challenge which is to describe the confidence in any prediction, and methods to assess predictive model quality. The later chapters describe the application of quantitative approaches to describing and optimising potency, selectivity, drug metabolism and pharmacokinetic properties and toxicology, and the design of chemical libraries to feed the screening approaches to lead generation that underpin modern drug discovery. Finally the book describes the impact of bioinformatics, current status of predicting ligand affinity direct from the protein structure, and the application of quantitative approaches to predicting environmental risk. The book provides a summary of the current state-of-the-art in quantitative approaches to drug design, and future opportunities, but it also provides inspiration to drug design practitioners to apply careful design, to make best use of the quantitative methods that are available, while continuing to improve them. Drug discovery still relies heavily on random screening and empirical screening cascades to identify leads and drugs and the process has many failures to deliver only a small handful of drugs. With the rapidly escalating costs of drug discovery and development together with spiralling delivery, quantitative approaches hold the promise of shifting the balance of success, to enable drug discovery to maintain its economic viability.

High quality leads provide the foundation for the discovery of successful clinical development candidates, and therefore the identi?cation of leads is an essential part of drug discovery. The process for the identi?cation of leads generally starts with the screening of a compound collection, either an HTS of a relatively large compound collection (hundreds of thousands to one million plus compounds) or a more focused screen of a smaller set of compounds that have been preselected for the target of interest. Virtual screening methods such as structure-based or pharmacophore-based searches can complement or replace one of the above approaches. Once hits are identi?ed from one or more of these screening methods, they need to be thoroughly characterized in order to con?rm activity and identify areas in need of optimization. Finally, once fully characterized hits are identi?ed, preliminary optimization through synthetic modi?cation is carried out to generate leads. Parallel optimization of all properties, including biological, physicochemical, and ADME is the most ef?cient approach to the identi?cation of leads. Hit characterization is described in the previous chapter. The focus of this chapter is on hit optimization and the identi?- tion of leads. After a general overview of these processes, examples taken from the literature since 2001 will be used to illustrate speci?c points. There are also a number of excellent reviews covering the lead identi?cation process [1–6].