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Updated: May 13, 2026

Biosensor-based High Throughput Biopanning and Bioinformatics Analysis Strategy for the Global Validation of Drug-protein Interactions
Published on: December 1, 2020
A structural biology view of target drugability
1Head of Structural Biology Bayer Schering Pharma AG, Lead Discovery Berlin - Structural Biology, 13342 Berlin, Germany +49 30 46811522 ; +49 30 46891522 ; Ursula.Egner@bayerhealthcare.com.
Background:
With long and costly drug development times there is a need in the pharmaceutical industry to prioritize targets early in the drug discovery process. One of the possible criteria is 'protein drugability', a term with multiple understandings in the literature. Among others, it is the likelihood of finding a selective, low-molecular weight molecule that binds with high affinity to the target.
Objective:
Which methods are available for drugability prediction? What can be achieved by such predictions and how can they influence the target prioritization process?
Methods:
The main focus is on sequence- and structure-related computational methods for drugability prediction, giving an overview on their background as well as their bias and limitations with an emphasis on the structural biology point of view.
Results/Conclusion:
Structural drugability assessment presents one criterion for prioritization of a target portfolio by enabling classification of targets into low, average, or high drugability.
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