Metabolite identification

Applied Biosystems and its joint venture partner, MDS Sciex have announced the global availability of a drug discovery application that enables pharmaceutical companies and contract research organisations to more quickly and accurately screen drug candidates.

The 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. The 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.

This 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. Because the application is designed to be workflow-based for the Metabolite ID laboratory, it allows users to streamline their work, simplifying the process and allowing for a large 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.