Drug metabolites have been monitored with various types of newly developed techniques and/or combination of common analytical methods, which could provide a great deal of information on metabolite profiling. Because it is not easy to analyze whole drug metabolites qualitatively and quantitatively, a single solution of analytical techniques is combined in a multilateral manner to cover the widest range of drug metabolites. Mass-based spectroscopic analysis of drug metabolites has been expanded with the help of other parameter-based methods. The current development of metabolism studies through contemporary pharmaceutical research are reviewed with an overview on conventionally used spectroscopic methods. Several technical approaches for conducting drug metabolic profiling through spectroscopic methods are discussed in depth.
Keywords: Circular dichroism; Drug metabolites; Infrared spectroscopy; Mass spectrometry; Nuclear magnetic resonance; Raman spectroscopy; Spectroscopy; Surface plasmon resonance; Ultraviolet–visible spectroscopy.