“…In addition to the issues associated with HCT, another notable barrier to introducing DBS analysis to pharmaceutical drug development was persuading bioanalysts to accept a technique that was new and both more complex, and offered less assay sensitivity than the conventional wet plasma analysis technique it was potentially replacing . To counter this, numerous groups have investigated DBS direct analysis techniques that eliminate manual preparation prior to analysis and (in some cases) enable increased assay sensitivity through injecting the entire extracted volume onto the analytical system. ,, We have found that the most accessible DBS direct analysis technique for use in regulated quantitative bioanalysis is currently direct elution, as it offers reliable performance, compatibility with HPLC, and increased assay sensitivity. ,, In order to maximize the scope of this work, for each method of IS addition, analysis was investigated using both conventional manual extraction (using both subpunch and whole-spot extraction) and direct elution (using both sub sampling and whole-spot elution).…”