The Role of LC–MS in Drug Discovery

Introduction :

The implementation of new tools within the discovery process, including combinatorial chemistry, proteomics and ADME/tox profiling, demand the creation of new strategies for pharmaceutical analysis. Sample generation has increased very rapidly and, as a consequence, traditional analytical approaches are unable to fulfil the requirements set by lead generation. Therefore, a great challenge has developed to create new, rapid, high-throughput analytical methods to speed-up the whole discovery process.

CE–MS

Capillary electrophoresis (CE) is a relatively new tool for chiral analysis. Chiralty is very important in biochemistry because different enantiomers can produce diverse pharmacological and toxicological actions. Fujiware and Honda described the use of CE in the pharmaceutical industry.1 Once a screening method has been developed, CE can be used as an additional technique for the detection of impurities. In the discovery process CE can help with the quantification of enantiomers. The first coupling of CE with mass spectrometry (MS) was demonstrated by Lane et al.2 CE–MS combines the advantages of CE (highly efficient separation) and MS (structural information).


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