Three Technologies Set To Transform Drug Discovery in 2025 and Beyond
Biotech start-ups showcase breakthroughs in targeting, testing and design at ELRIG Drug Discovery 2024.
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The drug discovery process is famously complex, costly and time-intensive. With high failure rates in clinical trials, especially in later stages, the industry needs new approaches to improve outcomes. The development of more sophisticated disease models and the application of artificial intelligence in drug design are just two examples of the recent advances being leveraged by the pharmaceutical industry to develop treatments that are both effective and safe.
The biotech startup landscape is often where some of the most transformative ideas are born, unburdened by legacy systems and usually agile enough to take the risks that drive scientific breakthroughs. This year's European Laboratory Research and Innovation Group (ELRIG) Drug Discovery 2024 event showcased some of the most promising UK biotech startups. From organelle-specific screening to solubility measurement innovations, these companies are creating novel tools to improve the accuracy, speed and cost-effectiveness of drug discovery.
Technology Networks asked a selection of startups featured in the ELRIG Drug Discovery 2024 Breakthrough Zone how their technology might reshape the pharmaceutical industry and pave the way for the next generation of therapeutic discovery.
Félix Torres, CEO and co-founder of NexMR AG:
“At NexMR, we are supercharging drug design with atomic resolution data obtained at an ultrafast pace. Our light-coupled magnetic resonance platform gathers all the necessary information (screening, affinity, structure) that supports rational drug design. Our technology is 30-50-fold faster than the state-of-the-art and is available on cost-effective spectrometers (10-fold cheaper than state-of-the-art).”
Marine Moutia, COO and co-founder of Oria Bioscience:
“At Oria, we have developed a microfluidic-based organelle purification technology. Developed at ENS-PSL and CNRS Paris, our technology enables, for the first time, the extraction of lysosomes, mitochondria and endoplasmic reticulum at high throughput and in high quality. The purified organelles can be maintained stable for up to one month and can be sent all over the world to be directly used in any drug discovery platform.”
“Our innovation enables, for the first time, organelle high-throughput screening on a highly relevant physiological model. The targets of interest, located on organelle membranes or inside the organelles, can be tested in their native membranes or native environment. Working directly on organelles offers a better understanding and a better reading of compound efficacy, allowing us to accelerate hit-to-lead and lead optimization phases and to reduce clinical attrition rates on organellar targets.”
Nathan Dupertuis, co-founder of Oryl Photonics SA:
“We have developed a laboratory instrument that measures the solubility and aggregation of molecules in liquids. It is based on an advanced form of laser light scattering. We shine an ultrafast infrared laser beam on the liquid sample. The light interacts with the matter, which generates and scatters green light. By analyzing this green light, we can detect very finely the presence of undissolved particles or aggregates.”
“Researchers need to assess the solubility of their drug substance. However, they are stuck with limited techniques to measure the aggregation of big and complex molecules, especially when they have a limited amount of precious sample at their disposal. The state-of-the-art for solubility measurement, high-performance liquid chromatography—mass spectrometry, is sensitive but burns through a lot of compound and resources and is slow. On the other hand, simpler techniques like dynamic light scattering are rapid but unreliable and inaccurate. Our instrument closes this gap with a rapid, sensitive and accurate measurement that requires a minimal amount of compound. This means that we unlock solubility measurement at scale.”
This article is part of a series highlighting the technologies on display as part of the ELRIG Drug Discovery 2024 Breakthrough Zone. You can read the other two articles in the series below:
