KULeuven takes part in new joint venture organisation: Hit Discovery Constance GmbH

On 14 January 2014 Hit Discovery Constance GmbH (HDC), a new joint venture organisation between Lead Discovery Center (Dortmund/Germany), Centre for Drug Design and Discovery (CD3, KULeuven, Leuven/Belgium) and Axxam (Milan/Italy) has started its operation. The new company is based in Constance (Germany) and will make use of the already established equipment and know-how of the former Takeda/Nycomed/Altana screening and compound management facilities at the site.

HDC is a service oriented company which provides high quality drug discovery research services to the Life Science industry and academic or research institutions.

The offering includes assay development, High Throughput Screening (HTS) using radiometric formats, as well as conventional biochemical and cellular assay formats, automated High Content Screening (HCS) and Biosafety level 2 (BSL2) HTS. HDC’s labs are equipped with three state-of-the-art screening stations, a Screening Collection of 240.000 compounds and offer a REMP-based compound storage & handling facility which allows high quality storage and high throughput compound picking activities. Combined with Axxam`s already established HTS services and compound storage facilities, HDC represent one of the largest screening hubs worldwide.

Stefan Lohmer, Chief Executive Officer at Axxam, commented “today`s opening of HDC, excellently positioned in the middle of Europe, is a further important strategic expansion for our service business, perfectly complementing our existing offers by providing the next level of compound management combined with fully automated Radiometric and High Content Screening, thereby responding to the increasing demands for these screening technologies. Now for all the different targets of interest, the most suitable assay format can be chosen, developed and screened”.

“The availability of such HTS and compound management hub also for academic and translational research activities is a significant step forward for the European research community and will boost drug discovery and chemical biology programs significantly in terms of timelines as well as the quality of the hit compounds identified in a screening operation. We are very happy to revive this research site in Constance which has a long-standing history in successful drug discovery”, added Bert Klebl, Managing Director at LDC.

Patrick Chaltin, Managing Director at CD3, is very pleased with the collaborative effort and joint venture spirit between the partners which has led to the establishment of the HDC. “With HDC, a new fully automated HTS centre is available for industry as well as for academic and research institutions which can become an important player in the increasing translational drug discovery efforts”.