Optibrium, Imperial College and DNDi to collaborate on drug development

Optibrium has entered into a collaboration with Imperial College London and Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative (DNDi), a non-profit drug R&D organisation developing new treatments for neglected diseases.

Optibrium’s StarDrop software will be available to students at Imperial College studying MSci and MRes programmes in Medicinal Chemistry, as part of a collaborative project with DNDi to design new candidate compounds for Visceral Leishmaniasis.

Optibrium will also provide teaching on the application of software for drug discovery to these students. The collaboration is part of DNDi’s Open Synthesis Network, a global health programme focused on neglected diseases, and also supports a wider initiative to provide students the most relevant courses for a career in the pharmaceutical industry.

As part of the collaboration, students will have access to StarDrop’s unique drug discovery capabilities enabling them to, for example, characterise properties for known drugs, understand the structure-activity relationships in existing project chemistry and then intuitively design new candidate compounds based on StarDrop’s predictive models. Compounds that show potential to become effective therapies for the treatment and prevention of these diseases will be progressed by DNDi.

Dr Matthew Segall, CEO of Optibrium, commented, “StarDrop is leading edge software that is used across the pharma industry to improve the speed, efficiency, and productivity of the drug discovery process. We are delighted to be working with DNDi on neglected diseases and through Imperial College, supporting students to gain experience of industry standard tools and software ‘know-how’. This will ensure that they understand best practices in data analysis and new compound design for when they enter either commercial or academic research.”

Professor Ed Tate, Course Director for the MRes Drug Discovery and Development said, “These projects allow our students to do real innovative science at the cutting edge of drug development. They have access to every part of the process, including designing, synthesising and testing. This is the first open, ongoing project of its type, and could provide an interesting template for future collaboration with the pharmaceutical industry.”