This review aims to highlight the applications of one of the most prominent optical biosensor technologies, surface plasmon resonance (SPR), in the drug discovery process and quality analysis of pharmaceutical compounds and their particularities. SPR assay formats and experimental issues are used for pharmacokinetic drug profiling, ADMET studies, high-throughput screening, and fragment-based drug screening, the last with an emphasis on the detection of small (drug) molecules. The classical method strengths and some applications of localized SPR and SPR imaging that are of high interest in the drug discovery process are presented, as well as possible challenges. While similar works treat separately the steps of drug discovery or focus only on the detection of drug residues in food or health safety, this review presents in a compact format the results and the progress obtained in both areas (drug discovery and quality analysis) based on the application of SPR biosensors.
Keywords: biosensors; pharmaceuticals; small molecule analysis; surface plasmon resonance (SPR).