In VivoMetabolism in Preclinical Drug Development

Abstract

In preclinical drug discovery, investigation of the in vitro, in vivo metabolism and toxicity screening of a drug candidate together play a very important role in the drug's success before entering into clinical use. Several in vitro models, such as isolated perfused livers, liver tissue slices, freshly isolated hepatocytes in suspension, primary hepatocyte cultures, cell lines, microsomes, mitochondria, and expression systems have been developed to profile human metabolism. This article focuses on the preclinical in vivo metabolism of drug candidates and prodrugs.