We present an RP-HPLC method for the determination of the octanol-water distribution coefficients at pH 7.4, as log values, for neutral and basic drugs, which combines ease of operation with high accuracy. The method is shown to work for a training set of 90 molecules comprised largely of drugs, and it was also applied to a test set of 10 proprietary compounds. This work expands the applicability of the method presented in our earlier report, for the determination of logP(oct) for neutral compounds (J. Med. Chem. 2000, 43, 2922-2928), and it offers the same general features but widens the scope. Generally, the method (i) is compound sparing (< or =1 mL of a 50-100 microg/mL solution needed), (ii) is insensitive to concentration and phase ratio effects observed in some shake-flask determinations, (iii) is amenable to rapid determinations (< or = 20 min on average), (iv) is insensitive to impurities, (v) possesses a wide lipophilicity range (>7 log units), and (vi) offers a good accuracy, (vii) an excellent reproducibility, (viii) and an excellent potential for automation. To the best of our knowledge, a similar performance, on a set of noncongeneric drugs, has not been previously reported. We refer to the value generated via this method as ElogD(oct).

We present an RP-HPLC method, for the determination of logPoct values for neutral drugs, which combines ease of operation with high accuracy and which has been shown to work for a set of 36 molecules comprised largely of drugs. The general features of the method are as follows: (i) compound sparing (< or = 1 mL of a 30-50 microg/mL solution needed), (ii) rapid determinations (20 min on average), (iii) low sensitivity to impurities, (iv) wide lipophilicity range (6 logPoct units), (v) good accuracy, (vi) excellent reproducibility. A linear free energy relationship (LFER) analysis, based on solvation parameters, shows that the method encodes the same information obtained from a shake-flask logPoct determination. To the best of our knowledge a similar performance, on a set of noncongeneric drugs, has not been previously reported. We refer to the value generated via this method as ElogPoct.

We present a method for the prediction of volume of distribution in humans, for neutral and basic compounds. It is based on two experimentally determined physicochemical parameters, ElogD(7.4) and f(i(7.4)), the latter being the fraction of compound ionized at pH 7.4 and on the fraction of free drug in plasma (f(u)). The fraction unbound in tissues (f(ut)), determined via a regression analysis from 64 compounds using the parameters described, is then used to predict VD(ss) via the Oie-Tozer equation. Accuracy of this method was determined using a test set of 14 compounds, and it was demonstrated that human VD(ss) values could be predicted, on average, within or very close to 2-fold of the actual value. The present method is as accurate as reported methods based on animal pharmacokinetic data, using a similar set of compounds, and ranges between 1.62 and 2.20 as mean-fold error. This method has the advantage of being amenable to automation, and therefore fast throughput, it is compound and resources sparing, and it offers a rationale for the reduction of the use of animals in pharmacokinetic studies. A discussion of the potential errors that may be encountered, including errors in the determination of f(u), is offered, and the caveats about the use of computed vs experimentally determined logD and pK(a) values are addressed.

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