Technology

Concert Pharmaceuticals is pioneering the use of precision deuterium chemistry. Deuterium is a naturally-occurring element derived from sea water. It is abundant in nature; in fact, there is greater than 1 gram of deuterium in the average human adult.

Deuterium is a stable, non-radioactive relative of hydrogen, and has been widely used in human clinical studies to examine pharmacokinetics and metabolism. An important feature of deuterium is that its size and shape within a drug molecule are essentially identical to hydrogen. As a result, selective replacements of hydrogen by deuterium result in new medicines that generally retain the full biochemical potency and selectivity of the original chemical entity that contains only hydrogen.

From a drug development perspective, one of the most compelling characteristics of deuterium is that it forms particularly strong bonds with carbon. CoNCERT has demonstrated that this increased bond strength, in select cases of precisely modified molecules, can positively impact certain drugs’ absorption, distribution, metabolism and/or excretion (ADME) properties, creating the potential for improved drug efficacy, safety, and tolerability. Poor ADME properties limit the potential of many important currently-used medicines. They are also a major reason for compound failure in clinical trials.

Concert’s innovative approach to applying precision deuterium chemistry across the pharmacopeia of approved drugs and clinically validated compounds is generating numerous patentably distinct new chemical entities (NCE’s) (click here for a view of Concert’s product pipeline).

Please feel welcome to contact us at info@concertpharma.com for additional information about our technology.

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