LC/MS applications in drug development.
The combination of high-performance liquid chromatography and mass spectrometry (LC/MS) has had a significant impact on drug development over the past decade. Continual improvements in LC/MS interface technologies combined with powerful features for structure analysis, qualitative and quantitative, have resulted in a widened scope of application. These improvements coincided with breakthroughs in combinatorial chemistry, molecular biology, and an overall industry trend of accelerated development. New technologies have created a situation where the rate of sample generation far exceeds the rate of sample analysis. As a result, new paradigms for the analysis of drugs and related substances have been developed. The growth in LC/MS applications has been extensive, with retention time and molecular weight emerging as essential analytical features from drug target to product. LC/MS-based methodologies that involve automation, predictive or surrogate models, and open access systems have become a permanent fixture in the drug development landscape. An iterative cycle of "what is it?" and "how much is there?" continues to fuel the tremendous growth of LC/MS in the pharmaceutical industry. During this time, LC/MS has become widely accepted as an integral part of the drug development process. This review describes the utility of LC/MS techniques for accelerated drug development and provides a perspective on the significant changes in strategies for pharmaceutical analysis. Future applications of LC/MS technologies for accelerated drug development and emerging industry trends are also discussed.
Lee
M S
MS
Milestone Development Services, Pennington, New Jersey 08534-0813, USA.
Kerns
E H
EH
D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D001702:Biopharmaceutics; D002626:Chemistry, Pharmaceutical; D002853:Chromatography, Liquid / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D013058:Mass Spectrometry / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000379:methods*; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D013678:Technology, Pharmaceutical