List view / Grid view

Analytical techniques

 

article

Pharmaceutical analysis in drug development

7 April 2008 | By

It is clear that pharmaceutical analysis plays a very important supporting role in drug development. Already during the conception of a candidate drug, for example by chemical synthesis, suitable analytical means are required to determine the identity and purity of the compound. Subsequent studies performed on candidate drugs with the…

article

High content screening as improved lead finding strategy

19 March 2008 | By

High content screening (HCS) is based on subcellular imaging using automated microscopy, in combination with automated image analysis. High content screening was first introduced over a decade ago as one of the promising new technologies, intended to address the bottleneck of secondary assays in the development of new drugs. Since…

article

Thermal analysis and calorimetry: latest developments

19 March 2008 | By Danielle Giron, Chemical Research & Development, Novartis Pharma AG, Basel, Switzerland

Thermal analysis techniques cover all methods in which a physical property is monitored as a function of temperature or time, whilst the sample is being heated or cooled under controlled conditions. Calorimetric methods measure the energy involved in every process. The quicker new developments attain the market, such as the…

article

PAT: not a purpose in itself

19 March 2008 | By

The process analytical technology guidelines have been a hotly debated topic within the pharmaceutical industry ever since they were made public in 2004. This also holds true at Johnson & Johnson Pharmaceutical Research & Development (J&JPRD), Division of Janssen Pharmaceutical N.V. In recent years, the company has introduced PAT tools…

article

Genome-wide High Content Analysis of cellular pathways

23 January 2008 | By

Creating the molecular tools to combat human disease and infection remains the cornerstone activity of the pharmaceutical industry. The methodologies employed to discover new drugs has continually evolved as new biological techniques have emerged1; nevertheless the development of each novel compound is still only realised after many years of careful…

article

High throughput materials discovery “reducing product time to market”

23 January 2008 | By Dr. Neil Campbell, Senior Experimental Officer, Automation and Process Development Specialist, Centre for Materials Discovery, University of Liverpool

With ever mounting market pressure on industries, from increasing global competition, along with consumer desire for value for money and improved performance results there is a greater driving force to stay one step ahead by reducing product time to market. This enforced impetus has many companies having to continually improve…

article

Product Quality Lifecycle Implementation (PQLI) – providing practical solutions

23 January 2008 | By

This article discusses ISPE’s Product Quality Lifecycle Implementation (PQLI) initiative, which is to provide practical guidance for implementation of ICH Q8, Q9 and Q10. It represents the author’s individual opinion. It should be noted that PQLI is an evolving work area and so will continue to develop beyond the position…

article

PAT: a comprehensive guide

23 January 2008 | By

European Pharmaceutical Review presents a comprehensive guide to PAT addressing the challenges and advancements that are impacting upon PAT implementation in 2008 and beyond...

article

Driving lab automation forward

23 November 2007 | By

A round table discussion covering the driving forces behind the integration of automated technology within the pharmaceutical industry, the procedures that are followed when implementing new automated techniques, current areas of drug discovery most benefiting from lab automation, how lab automation advanced the drug discovery marketplace over the last five…

article

Automated workflow optimisation and assay development strategies for High Content Research Facility, Trinity College Dublin

23 November 2007 | By

High Content Screening (HCS) is becoming increasingly utilised as an early drug-discovery and basic research tool for defining the functions of genes, proteins and other biomolecules in normal and abnormal cellular functions. HCS involves the integration of a number of preparation steps which include; cell-sample preparation, fluorescent labelling, image acquisition,…

article

Enthalpic efficiency and the role of thermodynamic data in drug development: possibility or a pipeline dream!

23 November 2007 | By

The determination of accurate thermodynamic data for the interactions of biomolecules has been enhanced over the last decade by the use of isothermal titration calorimetric (ITC) instrumentation. These instruments are now standard kits in many biophysical/structural biochemistry laboratories of pharmaceutical companies. Despite this, there is little evidence for the input…

article

The future direction of ASTM E55 Committee on manufacture of pharmaceutical products

23 November 2007 | By Steve Simmons, Head of Process Knowledge QbD, Wyeth Pharmaceuticals

ASTM Committee E55 formed in April of 2003 as a result of FDA’s GMPs for the 21st Century Initiative and the subsequent Guidance, “PAT – a framework for innovative pharmaceutical manufacturing and quality assurance.” Focusing on process understanding and flexible manufacturing, FDA encouraged the pharmaceutical industry to utilise the consensus…

article

Statistical techniques for handling high content screening data

21 September 2007 | By Edward Ainscow, Research Scientist, AstraZeneca

One of the chief incentives for the use of high content screening (HCS) approaches is the data rich return one gets from an individual assay. However, conventional methods for hit selection and activity determination are not well suited to handling multi-parametric data. Tools borrowed from the genomics area have been…

article

Protein crystallography in drug design: current bottlenecks

21 September 2007 | By Timothy Allison & Sanjeev Munshi, Department of Structural Biology, Merck, Westpoint, PA

Protein crystallography is an integral component of the structure-guided drug discovery process. Rapid access to structural information about drug targets as well as bound ligands has been pivotal in accelerating lead identification and optimisation processes...