Evotec-RSIL will be in a position to deliver libraries of any size

The Evotec-RSIL joint venture is known for its excellence in synthesis and management of compound libraries. Dr Lester Marrison, Chief Scientific Officer, Evotec-RSIL gives an in-depth view of the JV's activities to Sachin Jagdale

Could you tell us about Evotec's global presence and area of expertise.

Evotec currently has facilities in Hamburg, Germany and Oxford, UK and will add a research site in the US through a proposed acquisition of Renovis Inc, a CNS biotech company based in South San Francisco. It is expected that the purchase will be completed at the end of Q1 2008. Evotec is a recognised leader in the discovery and development of novel small molecule drugs. It has established a powerful platform that is applicable to targets across all therapeutic areas and has specific expertise in the area of Central Nervous System (CNS) related diseases where it is building a pipeline of drug candidates for partnering. Through research collaborations and proprietary projects Evotec is providing the highest quality research results to its partners in the pharma and biotechnology industries.

Evotec has established itself as a partner of choice for pharma and biotechnology companies worldwide by providing high quality, innovative and integrated solutions from drug target to clinic through an unmatched range of capabilities, including assay development, high-throughput and high-content screening, fragment-based drug discovery and medicinal chemistry. It has a track record that includes collaborating with 35 of the world's top 50 pharma companies.

What is the rational behind the joint venture between Evotec and RSIL ?

The pharma industry is very well established in India and the international recognition of the science being completed is constantly improving. There are many foreign companies who have, or who are looking to establish themselves in India. At the same time, Evotec was looking for a partner for its highly successful library synthesis platform. The platform was well established and Evotec felt that coupling this with the cost efficiencies of India would offer potential customers a unique and unrivalled solution to the design and synthesis of their compound screening libraries. RSIL has an excellent reputation with respect to having a strong and knowledgeable workforce able to take up the challenge of learning new chemistries and building on their own experiences. Both Evotec and RSIL were quick to notice a mutually beneficial relationship through the combination of Evotec's library design and synthesis platform and RSIL's cost efficient structure. This has now led to the establishment of the Evotec-RSIL joint venture that offers services for the design, synthesis and management of compound libraries.

What are your expectations from this joint venture?

Evotec-RSIL is in the unique position that it will be the only India-based CRO able to offer a fully developed library synthesis platform. Our aim is to establish Evotec-RSIL as a reliable supplier of the highest quality custom designed and prepared compound libraries. In addition to this, we will further leverage Evotec's experience by offering compound management services.

Could you explain the term 'compound library'?

The term "library" is now frequently used in normal chemistry nomenclature and its original meaning is slowly being lost. Traditionally a compound library is a group of compounds, which have been prepared using solid, or solution phase parallel synthesis methodologies, related by a similar structural type or synthetic route. Today there are many types of "compound libraries". Mixed, discrete, focused, natural product, "lead-like" or "drug-like" and screening libraries are all examples, but whose depiction may not necessarily be covered by the original description and a library is defined as a collection of compounds. A library may consist of any number of compounds, from tens to potentially billions, although this is more an academic exercise than of practical application. In the early years of combinatorial chemistry prepared library sizes were often in the thousands or even tens of thousands, but today a typical custom library size is usually <500 compounds. Evotec-RSIL will be in a position to deliver libraries of any size, including the high thousands.

What are the benefits of Evotec-RSIL's compound management service?

It has been well documented that corporate compound collections have a finite shelf life and that screening of degraded compounds is a massive waste of money and resources for the pharma industry. The majority of pharma companies have a collection of compounds, which they have acquired over many years. Some of these compounds may havse deteriorated with time and to spare the expense of screening low quality compounds, it is often a good idea to periodically analyse such compound collections. In response to this need, Evotec-RSIL will offer a service to pharma companies whereby they will check the quality of their corporate collections in terms of the analytical purity and compound integrity. Based on the results, they will also offer the ability to purify degraded compounds through their compound purification services or the re-synthesis of compound libraries using their parallel synthesis platform.

Evotec-RSIL will be in a position to analyse up to 7000 compounds per day, which will exceed the ability of most other companies.

In addition we will be in a position to house a client's corporate collection and to provide custom formatted plates for screening within a rapid time-frame direct to their screening facility.

What is the importance of screening libraries to pharma companies?

Libraries have a significant importance to the drug discovery process. The procedures used to prepare libraries have enabled the preparation of more compounds in a year than traditional methods would have permitted in a lifetime. This has exponentially increased the number of compounds, and hence the covered chemical space, which are available for screening against biological targets to start off new lead discovery programs and to help feed future pipelines. By having access to thousands of compounds during a screening campaign, a well-designed library will increase the likelihood of identifying a hit compound for a particular biological target. Evotec has worked with many companies who have identified an initial hit through the screening of a compound library.

Libraries also provide companies with the ability to rapidly fill gaps in the chemical diversity space covered by their current corporate collections. By careful design we can ensure this gap is filled and provide access to structural types not currently covered by their collections thus providing access to novel chemical matter, a critical element of any drug discovery programme.

Alternatively a focused library can be prepared around a known hit or lead compound allowing rapid access to structure-activity-relationship (SAR) data, patent coverage and to provide support to ongoing medicinal chemistry activities.

What is the target of this joint venture?

We are looking to establish Evotec-RSIL as a recognized, reliable and cost-effective supplier of compound libraries. Two experienced employees of Evotec have relocated to India to run the operations, ensuring the expert training of locally recruited scientists in solid and solution phase parallel synthesis, analysis and purification as well as transferring state-of-the-art working practices from Evotec. In addition to the preparation of compound libraries we will be in a position to offer a full integrated library management and purification service.

Supporting this JV Evotec has further contributed state-of-the-art library synthesis equipment that means that Evotec-RSIL has more of such equipment per FTE than any competitor within India.

What is the time period of this joint venture?

Evotec-RSIL will exist to support library synthesis, analysis and management services for as long as there is an ongoing need.

sachin.jagdale@expressindia.com