Merging science with industry experience

The LDC consists of four departments with longtime expertise in the key drug discovery disciplines: medicinal chemistry, assay development & screening, biology, and pharmacology. Industry-experienced project managers ensure that working processes live up to international industry standards and that partnerships are managed in a professional manner.

Access to the best technologies in the field

The LDC will provide tailored solutions for each project, working closely with the respective inventors to integrate their specific expertise and, where appropriate, to draw on customized research tools, solutions and materials. In addition to the LDC’s state-of-the-art facilities, a range of diverse and focused compound libraries, as well as complementary services in the fields of high throughput screening, structural biology, bio- and cheminformatics or target production, can be accessed from a broad network of premier institutions and companies, thus meeting the specific needs of individual projects at any time.

In detail, the LDC's competencies cover

Medicinal Chemistry

– (Parallel) organic synthesis
– (Computer-aided) drug design
– Establishment of structure-activity relationships (SAR)
– Hit to lead optimisation
– Identification of drug-like molecules

Assay Development & Screening

– Development of biochemical and cellular assays

– Adaption of existing assays for HTS-format

– Biochemical and cellular primary screening (mid-scale)

– Coordination of external HTS campaigns¹

– Support of iterative optimization cycles in MedChem

– Project- and data management for screening campaigns

Biology

– Cellular pharmacology
– Prediction of compound efficacy & toxicity
– Mode of action and phenotypical studies
– Cellular selectivity
– Biomarker identification
– Identification and verification of PD makers

Pharmacology

– Early ADME/DMPK profiling
– In vitro ADME screening
– In vivo PK/PD studies²
– LCMS-based bioanalytics
– Early Tox studies²

 

¹ via access to a choice of partnered screening facilities as well as

to diverse & focussed compound libraries

² in vivo studies in co-operation with relevant service partners