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Pharmacokinetics is an area of pharmacology concerned with the time course of absorption, distribution, metabolism and excretion (collectively ADME) of drugs from biological systems in order to understand the effect of the drug, or of the organism, on the drug's impact. Pharmacokinetic parameters can also include toxicology and a drug’s liberation from its medicinal formulation.
Chang et al. evaluate the movement of molnupiravir and β-d-N4- hydroxycytidine (NHC) across the blood-brain barrier (BBB) in a rat. Molnupiravir metabolizes to NHC and crosses the BBB within 20 min at approximately 0.3–0.8% of the blood-brain ratio.
Digoxin is a widely used heart drug, but metabolism by bacteria in the human gut leads to variable efficacy. The enzyme responsible has now been identified and characterized.