Microdosing, imaging biomarkers and SPECT: a multi-sided tripod to accelerate drug development

The advances of nuclear medicine imaging instrumentation and radiopharmaceutical sciences allow their involvement in the developmental processes of therapeutic drugs. New chemical entities, meant as potential drugs, need to comply with the proof-of-principle. Tomographic imaging methods as PET, SPECT and CT have been used for small animal and human studies at an early stage of drug development. Using a drug candidate in a radiolabeled form in obtaining quantitative imaging data provides opportunity for a complete morphological and functional overview of targeting properties and overall pharmacokinetics. This can be helpful in go/no-go decision making. Microdosing, using e.g.1% of the proposed dose of the radiolabeled potential drug plays an important part in this early development and notably reduces the risk of serious adverse effects in human volunteers or patients. This paper primarily focuses on the way in which microdosing and SPECT imaging may contribute to the development of drugs. Furthermore, this paper illustrates how these techniques may help to eliminate weak drug candidates at early stage, making time and funds available for potential lead compounds. Eventually this approach facilitates and accelerates new drug approval. The present paper highlights how these techniques make drug development easier in the field of oncology and neurology.