Applied Biosystems accelerates drug discovery with new LightSight™ Software for Metabolite Identification

Applied Biosystems has announced the global availability of a new drug discovery application that enables pharmaceutical companies and contract research organisations to more quickly and accurately screen drug candidates. The new application - LightSight Software™ for Metabolite Identification - improves the productivity and efficiency of drug discovery scientists analysing new compounds to treat human disease.

Drugs are usually metabolised by the body as a method to eliminate the drug. Identifying drug metabolites, which are the intermediates and products of metabolism, is key to the drug discovery process because the metabolites formed could be potentially toxic or could be more efficacious than the drug itself. Applied Biosystems/MDS SCIEX's metabolite ID solution enables drug discovery scientists to more quickly examine thousands of drug candidates and quickly determine those that fail to meet the requirements for further development. Companies can then focus valuable resources with greater accuracy on the most promising drug candidates.

A high level of accuracy in metabolite ID is critical, as research by the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America indicates that on average, only five out of 5,000 drug candidates make it to clinical trial testing. Although generally costing millions of dollars to develop, only one drug out of those five is expected to eventually be approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and international regulatory agencies.

More than 100 pharmaceutical scientists from 35 companies worldwide provided input and feedback for the development of the LightSight Software, resulting in a comprehensive metabolite ID package attuned to the way metabolite ID labs operate. One such scientist is Sandeep Pusalkar, a scientist at Millennium Pharmaceuticals, Inc. in Cambridge, MA. Millennium is one of the world's top biopharmaceutical firms, focused on targeting new drugs with the highest potential to fit its corporate strategies for personalized medicine.

"Metabolite ID is a tedious, time-consuming process, and a real bottleneck in our lab," said Pusalkar. "LightSight Software can help us decide which targeted drugs could be most effective by giving us greater confidence in our metabolite data earlier in the discovery cycle. Every additional day it takes to move a compound forward in that process has costly ramifications, so this will be a welcome advantage."

This new pharmaceutical application can be employed with the widely-used 4000 Q TRAP® mass spectrometer, as well as other triple quadrupole and hybrid linear ion trap mass spectrometers from Applied Biosystems/MDS SCIEX. Because the application is designed to be workflow-based for the metabolite ID lab, it allows users to streamline their work, simplifying the process and allowing for a larger number of experiments to be performed without an increase in resources or training. Online documentation explains the science behind the software, while video animations guide the user through the key software functionality.

"Applied Biosystems/MDS SCIEX understands the complexity of picking the best targets for new drugs," said Laura Lauman, Division President, Proteomics & Small Molecule Division, Applied Biosystems. "That's why our scientists continue to drive innovations in mass spectrometry technology to enable new and exciting discoveries in science and medicine."

Known for its proven track record in advanced pharmaceutical development tools, Applied Biosystems/MDS SCIEX is demonstrating its mass spectrometry platforms for various innovative solutions, including this metabolite identification application, at the 54th annual American Society of Mass Spectrometry (ASMS) conference in Seattle this week.

"The Applied Biosystems/MDS SCIEX joint venture delivers innovations that advance the work of life scientists," said Andy Boorn, President of MDS SCIEX. "LightSight Software contributes to pharmaceutical companies' initiatives to improve the process of drug discovery and development."