Pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies reap the most benefit from their strategic collaborations, by working with suppliers whose practices aim to combine and apply the comprehensive process knowledge that have been gained during research. The integration of chemistry and biology, and other capabilities during early drug discovery, delivers significant value to any company by assembling crucial information that has the potential to shorten time-line and improve outcomes at all stages of the pipeline. Working with contract research and manufacturing organizations that support fully integrated research services, with flexible business options and broad technical expertise, provide the best path towards obtaining the ultimate goal: commercialization.

AMRI continues to ensure that customers have access to the most adept experts to address their complex challenges. Recent investments, including the addition of global medicinal and computational chemistry capabilities in India, complement the company's existing capabilities in the US and Singapore. These investments, when coupled with the relocation of custom library synthesis resources and capabilities to India (from the company's Budapest, Hungary operations), would provide additional flexibility to enhance productivity for AMRI's global drug-discovery operations.

AMRI, which is distinguished as one of the top five CROs in the area of drug discovery and development, is equipped with the experience and problem-solving knowledge that is critical to contributing to successful outcomes. This knowledge stems from the company's integrated approach to drug discovery and development, including capabilities in the areas of in vitro biology, in vitro pharmacology, DMPK, medicinal chemistry, computer-aided drug discovery (CADD), structural biology and screening of both natural products and synthetic compound libraries. The chemistry group at AMRI applies medicinal chemistry to modify the structure of a hit compound, or series of hit compounds, in order to synthesize new molecules with the end goal of discovering compounds that are suitable for progressing into the human clinical trials phase. The biology group's capabilities, which easily integrate with its chemistry services, includes target and biomarker validation; assay development and design; in vitro pharmacology, such as potency, selectivity and mechanism-of-action studies; high-throughput screening (HTS); chemical genomics; in vitro DMPK; in vivo DMPK and in vivo pharmacology.

AMRI uses sophisticated CADD software and techniques to help identify novel hits or leads against selected therapeutic targets, as-well-as to support medicinal chemistry lead optimization programs. CADD methods increase the odds of identifying compounds with desirable characteristics, speed up the hit-to-lead process and improve the chances of propelling a compound over the many hurdles of preclinical testing.

Vast therapeutic strengths and R&D partnering

Since 2001, AMRI has been involved in 175 drug discovery projects resulting in 75 pre-clinical and clinical candidates. Working with large pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies has led AMRI to gain strength and experience across various therapeutic areas. The following case studies summarizes successful R&D applications and partnering opportunities in the therapeutic areas of anti-infectives, central nervous system (CNS) disorders, metabolic diseases, oncology and inflammation.