Novel Database Unifies the Knowledge of 100 Years of Drug Research

PharmaInformatic has developed a comprehensive knowledge base on bioavailability, which enables the targeted development of new drugs.

Several factors affect the oral bioavailability of drugs. For the first time, these can now be analyzed in detail, thanks to a new resource.

The new resource, called PACT-F (Preclinical And Clinical Trials Knowledge Base on Bioavailability) unifies the results and experiences of the last hundred years of drug research.

The development of the knowledge base began in 2005. Since then the detailed results and conditions of more than 5000 scientific publications concerning the bioavailability of drugs have been evaluated and integrated into the database.

Each of the 8296 records contains the chemical structure of the investigated drug and up to 17 additional fields, which describe in detail the experimental conditions of the trials (gender, age, health status and number of subjects, genetic differences, the species examined, route of administration, additional medication, method of measurement, drug formulation and further descriptions of the studies).

The knowledge base is a fundamental tool to develop computer models, which can predict the oral bioavailability of new drugs in humans, before clinical trials have to be conducted.

This increases the prospects of new drugs and enhances the safety of clinical trials in humans.

Dr Wolfgang Boomgaarden, founder and CEO of PharmaInformatic, says, 'Our research is a huge step forward in the area of drug development and will improve the efficiency of clinical trials in humans. Fundamental new findings and conclusions can be derived from the knowledge base which will impact future drug discovery and development.'

Oral bioavailability is one of the most important properties of a drug.

If a new drug candidate has low or no oral bioavailability, further drug development will be stopped, because the candidate cannot be absorbed in the body.