Viva Biotech was a proud sponsor of the last Sino-American Biotechnology and Pharmaceutical Professionals Association (SABPA) E-Club event held in San Diego, California. The mini-symposium attracted over 100 professionals including medicinal chemists, drug developers and more who represented many of the prestigious biotech and pharmaceutical companies of San Diego.
Brief introduction of Dr. Nickolas Carruthers
The keynote speaker, Dr. Nickolas Carruthers, is the Head of Strategic and Scientific Outreach and Discovery Sciences, at Janssen R&D LLC. He delivered an inspirational talk entitled “Two Decades of Neuroscience Medicinal Chemistry at Janssen” which gave the historical context of this fascinating field at JNJ and the direction they are currently heading. The captivating presentation offered a rare opportunity to learn about their drug discovery efforts against a wide range of CNS targets. These efforts have helped propel JNJ forward to secure a leadership position in Neuroscience and the successful launch of multiple new CNS drugs over the last two decades. Topics spanned from medicinal chemistry to neuroscience and the unique challenges of developing CNS drugs that will have profound real-world impact.
Yinghong Gao represents Viva at the Symposium
Viva was represented by Yinghong Gao, an Executive Director of Business Development and an Associate Business Partner for Viva’s US based partnerships. Ms. Gao gave a presentation on “SBDD, FDBB, ASMS and SPR-inspired Medicinal Chemistry”. This talk gave an overview on how sophisticated approaches such as Structure-based Drug Design (SBDD) and Fragment-based Drug Design (FBDD) coupled with Affinity Selection Mass Spectrometry (ASMS) screening and Surface Plasmon Resonance (SPR) technologies have been increasingly incorporated into the lead discovery and optimization process to guide medicinal chemistry endeavors. As a world-class CRO in these fields, Viva delivers more than 2,000 co-crystal structures per year, and has screened over 60 targets covering a wide range of diversity using Viva’s ASMS platform. With three new state-of-the-art chemistry facilities and over 300 chemists, Viva has helped delivered multiple small molecule clinical candidates, and is especially well equipped to enable clients who want to tackle challenging targets previously considered “undruggable”.
The symposium ended with a very lively Q&A session. Participants were able to walk away with a much better understanding and appreciation of the drug discovery process, especially in CNS indications, and how new technologies have become instrumental tools to guide modern medicinal chemistry. Viva personnel in attendance also found it very gratifying to hear a plethora of positive feedback from existing clients in these service areas. Thanks to SABPA and ACS San Diego chapters for such a successful event and Knobbe Martens for providing such a beautiful venue.
A scene from the symposium
Viva will be exhibiting at the upcoming ACS National Meeting in San Diego from August 25-28 and the ChemOutsourcing event in New Jersey from September 16 -19, 2019. Hope to see you there.
