ADME evaluation. 2. A computer model for the prediction of intestinal absorption in humans

Abstract

Purpose: To develop a computational method to rapidly evaluate human intestinal absorption, one of the drug properties included in the term ADME (Absorption, Distribution, Metabolism, Excretion). Poor ADME properties are the most important reason for drug failure in clinical development.

Methods: The model developed is based on a modified contribution group method in which the basic parameters are structural descriptors identified by the CASE program, together with the number of hydrogen bond donors.

Results: The human intestinal absorption model is a quantitative structure-activity relationship (QSAR) that includes 37 structural descriptors derived from the chemical structures of a data set containing 417 drugs. The model was able to predict the percentage of drug absorbed from the gastrointestinal tract with an r2 of 0.79 and a standard deviation of 12.32% of the compounds from the training set. The standard deviation for an external test set (50 drugs) was 12.34%.

Conclusions: The availability of reliable and fast models like the one we propose here to predict ADME/Tox properties could help speed up the process of finding compounds with improved properties, ultimately making the entire drug discovery process shorter and more cost efficient.