Modern analytical approaches to high-throughput drug discovery

Recent advances in analytical chemistry, such as miniaturization, automation, robotics, parallel separations, detection systems and chemometrics, have found interesting applications in the development of drug-discovery programs. To select drug candidates, these programs require high-throughput screening (HTS) assays, which evaluate the biological activity of a large number of compounds against a panel of targets, as well as determining the physicochemical and pharmacological properties of these compounds. However, the need to obtain such information earlier in the drug-discovery process has posed new challenges to analytical chemistry. This article presents a critical overview of:•the current analytical techniques and approaches used in selecting drug candidates;•the limitations that need to be overcome; and,•the recent advances in HTS assays proposed to overcome these limitations.