Ismael and I started Absorption Systems to provide reproducible experimental data from in vitro and in vivo assays to the drug discovery community. These assays, when performed on discovery molecules, save our customers significant amounts of money by identifying drug-like compounds with desirable ADME properties. In addition, regulatory agencies around the world have come to recognize the utility of using in vitro assays for predicting drug-drug interactions, cytochrome P450 induction and the Biopharmaceutical Classification of compounds in clinical development.

The mid-1990’s saw the emergence of combinatorial chemistry and high-throughput testing as dominant paradigms for drug discovery. The large number of compounds that require screening for drug-like properties led to an industry-wide temptation to produce more data faster and at a lower cost. Maintaining data quality while driving down costs may have been our greatest challenge in developing this business. What we have learned is that producing more data faster and at a lower cost does not necessarily translate into more successful drug development. This is related to the complexity of performing biological assays with uncharacterized compounds in a manufacturing-like process, which by its nature, is designed to produce standardized outputs from standardized inputs. This approach often produces a large quantity of ambiguous results that yield questionable insight into a molecule’s drug-like properties.

In 2002 we won the Entrepreneur of the Year award that is sponsored by Ernst and Young. Today, with the same entrepreneurial spirit, the management and staff of Absorption Systems continue to develop tools to characterize and understand the drug-like properties of molecules. Our commitment to providing both reliable data that meets your needs and helping you interpret the data is stronger than ever.

Quite simply, our business is showing our customers a better way, and why.

Patrick Dentinger