Finding new pharmaceuticals is an expensive and time-consuming business. But drug company Pharmacopeia of Cranbury, New Jersey, has found a short cut (US 20003/55802).
Instead of laboriously creating 3D models of the molecules from the outset, and comparing the spatial arrangement of the atoms, Pharmacopeia has found it can speed things up by working in one dimension. It takes a bird’s-eye view of a molecule, then simply compares the linear spacing of atoms in potential and known drug molecules, following up those that show promise with the full 3D analysis. This quickly eliminates no-hopers, the firm says.
