Final answer:
An effective High Throughput Screening (HTS) assay is determined by its relevance, effectiveness, speed, robustness, and accuracy and reproducibility, allowing rapid and reliable testing of NCEs.
Step-by-step explanation:
A key determinant of an effective High Throughput Screening (HTS) assay is its relevance, ensuring that the results of the screen are in good concordance with in vivo properties of the drug. Other important factors include the effectiveness of the screen in eliminating inadequate compounds without excluding all potential candidates, and the speed at which the assay can be performed to match the rate of new compound synthesis. Moreover, robustness, ensuring the procedure is applicable to a diverse array of chemical structures, and accuracy and reproducibility, balancing the error rate with the necessity for quick processing, are also critical. HTS assays are pivotal in the early and middle stages of drug discovery, enabling the fast testing of hundreds of new chemical entities (NCEs) per day.