Medicinal chemistry / Small Molecules

From the idea to the finished molecule – this is the path for novel drug candidates pursued by Fraunhofer IZI at its Halle (Saale) department.

The following services in the field of computer-assisted drug design and drug synthesis are available for small molecules:

• Molecular modeling and docking experiments,
• Synthesis and analytical characterisation of drugs, metabolites & reference substances,
• Exploration of structure-activity relationships

This range of services comprises the synthesis of individual compounds (e.g. resynthesis of substances known in the literature or isotope-marked reference compounds) up to and including the design and synthesis of compound libraries for drug development projects.

This covers a broad range of services for academic groups, as well as biotech and pharmaceutical companies, in various phases of the drug development process.

Moreover, the drug development service is completed by the cooperation with the department’s other working groups. As a result, the drugs generated can also be tested in-house in various biochemical or cell-based activity assays, their binding to the respective target structure can be characterised bio-physically and the interaction at the molecular level can be elucidated through X-ray structural analysis. In addition, preclinical characterisation methods (e.g. cytotoxicity and pharmacokinetics), including the necessary quantitative analytics, are available for suitable candidates.