For more than a decade, mass spectrometry (MS) has played an important role in absorption, distribution, metabolism, excretion and toxicology (ADMET) studies for drug discovery to help convert lead compounds into drug candidates. Drug discovery efforts have been focused on identifying drug metabolism and pharmacokinetic (DMPK) issues at the earliest possible stage to reduce attrition rate of drug candidates throughout the drug development process by applying cutting edge MS-based techniques. These emerging techniques have proven to be extremely valuable to accelerate the lead optimization and characterization processes by eliminating potentially unpromising candidates. In this article, the current MS-based approaches and their future perspectives in supporting exploratory DMPK studies including in vitro and in vivo pharmacokinetic profiling, physical property, metabolite identification and molecular imaging tests are reviewed.
