The best drug discovery platform

Project Information

Ultimate

Grant agreement ID: 728924

DOI

10.3030/728924

Project closed

EC signature date 23 May 2016

Start date 1 June 2016

End date 30 November 2016

Funded under

• INDUSTRIAL LEADERSHIP - Leadership in enabling and industrial technologies – Nanotechnologies

Total cost

€ 71 429,00

EU contribution

€ 50 000,00

Coordinated by

MCULE.COM KFT
Hungary

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - Ultimate (The best drug discovery platform)

Reporting period: 2016-06-01 to 2016-11-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

Development of one new drug can take about 15 years and cost up to 2 billion USD. The first step of the process is called drug discovery. At least 10,000 compounds are tested in the discovery phase and only 5 of them on average reach clinical trials. The loss due to research on failed compounds is about 27 million USD for one new drug. The success of the process depends on the selection of good molecules as starting points. Mcule aims to provide the best web-based drug discovery platform for pharmaceutical researchers (pharma companies, contract research organisations and academics). We aim to create an easily searchable chemical database of 500 million purchasable compounds, the Ultimate database, with standard parameters: minimum 80% synthetic success rate, maximum 6 weeks of delivery time, fixed prices. The Ultimate database would include virtual (not yet synthesized, but predicted to be synthesizable) compounds.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

In Mcule we provide a web-based drug discovery platform, which enables scientists to identify, optimize and order hits and leads faster. In the Ultimate project, we shall extend the existing chemical space with molecules that can be synthetized in an economically reliable way, and develop the algorithm for a searching tool that enables browsing on such big database. During the phase 1 project we made detailed market assessment and refined the need of our users. We assessed the project risks and IP protection possibilities as well as updated our business plan. We established partnership with world leading institutions and companies. We decided to continue the project and apply for SME Instrument Phase 2 grant.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

The key novelty of our innovation is that we make searchable the chemical space which is not synthesized but can be produced with reasonable effort. The ULTIMATE database is partly created by an “artificial chemist”, an intelligent in silico chemistry brain for practically instantaneous decisions on synthetic reaction evaluation producing synthetically feasible, new lead-like scaffold derivatives and building blocks. Besides the size of our database, we provide an easy-to-use chemical web-shop and multiple delivery options.
The Ultimate database will expectedly make pharmaceutical research more effective (higher hit-to-lead and lead-to-clinic ratios) and thus contribute to environmental friendly (less waste) and more economical (less cost) drug discovery.

ultimate-figure.jpg