The drug discovery industry has always regarded NPs as a valuable source of bioactive molecules. It is remarkable to note that the 33% of the NCEs discovered between 1981 and 2002 are either NPs or closely related to them (Rydzewski RM (2008) Realworld drug discovery. Elsevier, Slovenia 257-262). Moreover, the stream of new targets from genomics and proteomics require new chemotypes.

As NP-based drug discovery poses serious synthetic challenges and difficult screening procedures, most pharmaceutical companies have been downscaling in this field since the 1980s. Furthermore, the past two decades of HTS have shown that the era of synthetic compound libraries has generated millions of molecules that will never lead to new drugs. However, NPs represent an attractive source of diversity that is rarely seen in synthetic libraries. Therefore, the identification and incorporation of NP elements into synthetic scaffolds represents a synergic compromise that allows the unification of the positive features of two fields which are usually dealt with in isolation.

BioDesign represents this 'synergic compromise' between NP privileged features and straightforward screening and follow up chemistry. At the heart of the BioDesign concept is the incorporation of a 'BioCore' (see below) into many of our scaffolds, as well as saturated, spiro, chiral and 3D geometric compounds (plus a subset of highly soluble compounds). ASINEX is focusing on compounds which are highly privileged and at the same time under-represented in commercial sources.

Please click on any of the logos to see examples of the structures

• BioCore is the combination of 2 heterocycles (often found in natural products) - one is aromatic & one is saturated, linked by a CC bond


• BioCores allow chemists to create nature/lead-like scaffolds
• Asinex focuses on the most privileged elements of known drugs & natural products