Forefront of the academic drug discovery hit to lead support: history of the Lead Exploration Unit, Drug Discovery Initiative, The University of Tokyo

Abstract

Lead exploration unit, the University of Tokyo (DDI-LEU), was established in 2016 by Japan Agency for Medical Research and Development (AMED), as an internal organization of Drug Discovery Initiative (DDI), with the aim of enhancing the probability of innovative drug creation from academia. In DDI-LEU, hit-to-lead synthesis support will be conducted mainly by the active researchers from pharmaceutical companies, taking into account of ADME and physicochemical property evaluation, both of which were difficult to implement in the past in the academia for more than 4 years, under the BINDS program (Basis for Supporting Innovative Drug Discovery and Life Science Research). In the near future, to further improve the accuracy of support-efficiency, DDI-LE would like to develop toward the realization of advanced support.