AstraZeneca Licenses Optibrium StarDrop

By Bio-IT World Staff 

 

July 2, 2013 | AstraZeneca has licensed Optibrium’s StarDrop software globally for its researchers. The license covers StarDrop and the ADME-QSAR and Auto-Modeller modules. 

 

StarDrop, a finalist in the 2010 Bio-IT World Best of Show awards, is a software suite that highlights diverse, high-quality compounds, reducing the time it takes to find effective leads and transform them into candidate drugs, which will have a high probability of success downstream (see, “Picture Im-Perfect”). StarDrop works by evaluating complex data, often with experimental variability or predictive error. In scoring these data, the software brings confidence and simplicity to decision-making: guiding and validating the direction of research projects and which compounds are prioritized. Interactive tools then enable researchers to efficiently explore ways to further improve their chemistries.  

 

StarDrop’s ADME QSAR plug in module enables the prediction of a broad range of ADME and physicochemical properties using a suite of high-quality QSAR models.  The Auto-Modeller module gives both novice and expert users access to the tools needed to produce validated, predictive models of their own chemistry and data.

 

“StarDrop’s unique approach to multi-parameter optimization and intuitive user interface complement our in-house efforts in this area, and enable our interdisciplinary design teams to target compounds with a balance of properties required for their project objectives,” said Nicholas Tomkinson of AstraZeneca Informatics, in a statement. 

 

Patrick Barton, AstraZeneca DMPK, added, “Drug metabolism, together with the prediction of human kinetics and dose, is a multi-objective optimization problem. We seek a compromise between potency, selectivity, pharmacokinetic and toxicological profiles to discover a safe and efficacious drug. Currently, we undertake an empirical approach to optimization which relies on experience and often leads to inconsistent decision-making. The introduction of StarDrop will improve objective decision making and decrease the timelines of our projects.”