A research team at the University of Redlands, California has advanced a new approach to a critical process in pharmaceutical drug development that could reduce the time and cost of bringing a drug from concept to market.

The team utilized a nuclear magnetic resonance spectrometer for looking into individual molecules like carbons, hydrogens and oxygens to see how they fit together. A new software called Complete Reduction to Amplitude- Frequency Table or CRAFT was used towards a new approach to measure parameters related to partition coefficients.

CRAFT tables can be used for further data mining of quantitative information using fingerprint chemical shifts of compounds of interest and statistical analysis of modulation of chemical quantity in a biological study (metabolomics) or process study (reaction monitoring) or quality assurance and control.

This new approach is quick and easy and can be effectively used by researchers for designing their experiments. It can also be used by pharmaceutical companies for identifying promising drug candidates.