xPharm: A Preclinical Information Portal for Discovery Researchers in Institutions of Higher Learning

摘要

The preclinical or discovery phase of drug development involves researchers from biologists to medicinal chemists to pharmacologists employing often unique information resources, such as xPharm. This product was developed by Elsevier MDL. The xPharm database purports to be a one-stop-shopping place for scientists involved in drug discovery. xPharm is a collection of original summary articles on pharmacology by scientists for scientists on pharmacologic agents or compounds, but also links related information such as agent-biological target interactions, principles supporting agent-target relationships, and disorders for which an agent may be used. This column reviews xPharm content and its possible role in the drug discovery phase, as well as where xPharm is headed in the future. A researcher is interviewed to illustrate how xPharm is used or perceived by non-librarians. A select, annotated list of other fee-based drug development databases/products and some free Internet resources can be found in the Drug Research & Development Intelligence Kit located in the Appendix of this article.