FDA Improving (Q)SAR Models

FDA says agency researchers have been improving (quantitative) structure-activity relationship (Q)SAR models that are used to help predict the mutagenicity of drug impurities and drug substances. An online Regulatory Science Impact Story post says that as a result of the improvements, there is increasing interest from drug developers to apply the models not only to impurities but also to drug molecules.

“Models have been developed and continue to be improved for a wide variety of endpoints relevant to drug safety,” the post says, “such as carcinogenicity, liver toxicity, and cardiac toxicity. When drug developers are selecting candidate structures to investigate as future therapies, they can use (Q)SAR models to predict the relative toxicity of those structures before any lab testing is performed. This enables rapid decisions to be made on which candidates to develop, prioritizing those with the most desirable safety profiles.”