Novel in vivo procedure for rapid pharmacokinetic screening of discovery compounds in rats

In therapeutic areas aimed at developing an orally administered drug, the p harmacokinetic profile of a drug candidate after oral administration in viv o is pivotal in evaluating its success. This can be done by monitoring the plasma concentration versus time after dosing and calculating the area unde r the curve (AUC). The authors describe a novel screening protocol in which an estimated AUC can be determined, allowing the rapid evaluation of large numbers of compounds and providing a rank order of estimated AUC values to prioritize compounds for further investigation.