ESA Biosciences Launches High-Capacity Electrochemical HPLC Systems for Easy Compound and Oxidative-Metabolite Synthesis

ESA Biosciences, a Magellan Biosciences company and leader in quality electrochemical (EC) systems for HPLC, announced that it has launched new HPLC systems designed to help expedite drug-metabolism studies and supporting medicinal chemistry efforts by electrochemically synthesizing significant quantities of difficult-to-obtain metabolites from a variety of parent compounds.

At the systems’ core are new, high-efficiency, high-capacity electrochemical-synthesis cells. Since the user can control the systems’ oxidation capability to generate specific, desired oxidation products, they have wide utility in a variety of metabolite-generation tasks, alleviating the need to deploy precious medicinal chemistry resources to support drug-metabolism identification, while enhancing the synthesis capabilities of any laboratory.

Assessing metabolic stability and correctly identifying a compound’s metabolites using various in vitro and in vivo drug-metabolism assays is a crucial step in determining a compound’s suitability for drug development. However, LC-MS, the typical system used for metabolism studies, only reports the molecular weight of the metabolites being examined. LCMS cannot easily determine the exact structure of a given metabolite, especially if one or more hydroxylation reactions are involved in the metabolism of the compound. Irrefutably determining a metabolite’s structure often requires synthesis of complicated metabolites by medicinal-chemistry methods – a daunting task, until now, according to ESA Director of HPLC Marketing, Darwin Asa, PhD.

“ESA’s new electrochemical synthesis systems are an ideal complement to LC-MS for ADME-Tox/ DMPK and other drug-metabolism operations, because they can be used to quickly and easily generate large quantities of oxidative metabolites from parent compounds. Of particular interest to scientists evaluating the metabolic properties and toxicity of potential drugs, these systems mimic much of the oxidation capabilities of cytochrome P450, a key enzyme family that is responsible for metabolizing most drugs. Drug interactions involving the cytochrome p450 system are common, and a major cause of attrition in the drug-development process. Understanding the metabolites generated by these enzymes is key to understanding a compound’s metabolic fate.”

ESA designed two synthesis cells to suite specific application needs. The 5150 cell has high capacity and is preferred for low-potential (<500 mV) oxidation reactions, while the 5125 cell is recommended for high-potential reactions. Although smaller in volume, the 5125 cell minimizes unwanted over-oxidation reactions.