Abstract: Scientific advances in target discovery are identifying novel and clinically relevant targets at a fast pace. Whilst new drug modalities including PROTACs, glue degraders and PPI stabilisers are opening up targeting opportunities, turning these unprecedented targets into drug discovery campaigns is proving challenging. These proteins are often disordered and unstable, shifting the reliance from biochemical hit finding to cell assays in order to drive ligand identification and optimisation. In addition, scalable physiologically relevant cell models and patient derived material are becoming ever more accessible through advances in cell engineering, automation and miniaturisation. There is now a growing requirement to transform our cellular assay development processes to realise the potential of novel target discovery and deliver clinical candidate molecules.
Here I will showcase how we evolve our approach away from iterative assay development towards High Dimensional Experimental Design (HDED). I exemplify our approach to deliver decision making data for arrays of compounds within days. In addition, I will present our latest advances how we enable lean cascades for molecular glues and how we enable Click IT technology for new endogenous assay approaches to accelerate drug discovery. Together, this highlights how we evolve the way we work to accelerate drug discovery in a sustainable resource effective fashion.