Image analysis in drug discovery

Across all stages of drug discovery and development, experimental assays are performed to understand the effect of a drug or drug candidate—at the molecular, cellular, organ, or organism level. Imaging is a key technology in this process, and an imaging assay consisting of sample preparation, image acquisition, and image analysis provides a quantitative readout of a system. Historically, chemical assays have been the workhorse of early discovery, screening millions of compounds for a simple endpoint, whereas imaging was primarily used in lower throughput mechanistic studies. However, with development of high-throughput high-content microscopy platforms, the throughput of imaging assays now rivals chemical screens. Similarly, innovations in image analysis mean that robust quantitative conclusions can be derived from complex and multimodal image data, driving informed decision making later in the drug development process. For these reasons, imaging is widely used throughout the pharmaceutical industry and throughout multiple stages of the drug discovery process.