Hitgen

Chemistry

Hits to candidates, every atom counts

Our chemistry team is adept at taking fragment hits and growing them into efficient lead series and beyond. By leveraging a wealth of in-house structural and biophysical data, our synthetic, computational, analytical, and medicinal chemistry specialists work together to produce novel molecules that drive our projects forward.

Medicinal

  • Expertise in multiple target classes, including kinases, PPIs, GPCRs, and ion channels
  • Proficient in the use of crystallographic, NMR, and computational structures to aid molecule design
  • In-house PROTAC™, ADC, and assay probe design
  • Access to a range of commercial, and in-house developed software to help make optimal data-driven decisions

Synthetic

  • Fully equipped laboratories, with milligram to kilogram capabilities
  • Highly experienced team skilled at route planning and optimisation
  • Dedicated flow chemistry and reaction automation resources
    • Syrris Asia Flow Chemistry System
    • Explore conditions using design of experiment (DoE) approaches
    • Significant organometallics expertise
    • 3D printing of custom labware
  • Photochemistry and electrochemistry experience
    • Lucent360 Advanced Photoreactor
    • IKA ElectraSyn
  • Exceptional purification capabilities
    • ISCO NextGen CombiFlash and AccQ-prep semi-prep HPLC
    • Automated mass-directed reverse phase HPLC

Analytical

  • Full characterisation and automated QC for all synthesised compounds
    • 1H, 13C, 19F NMR spectroscopy
    • Reverse phase LCMS
  • Physicochemical property measurements
    • Kinetic solubility
    • LogD (HPLC method)
    • Melting point
  • Optical purity and characterisation
    • Chiral HPLC purity assessment
    • Small molecule X-ray structure determination

Computational

  • Dedicated computational chemists support all projects using a range of molecular modelling techniques
    • Biomolecule folding
    • Binding site prediction
    • Molecular dynamics (MD)
    • Molecular docking
    • Virtual screening (VS)
    • ab initio calculations
  • Cheminformatics expertise helps identify and exploit SAR during all stages of our drug discovery projects
    • Machine learning (ML) and data science approaches
    • KNIME node development helps our scientists, and the wider drug discovery community
  • In-house software development helping our scientists make better data-driven decisions

Meet our colleagues

Paul Brough PhD
Senior Team Leader, Chemistry
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James Davidson PhD
Senior Team Leader, Medicinal and Computational Chemistry
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Lee Walmsley
Senior Team Leader, Chemistry
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Andrew Potter PhD
Senior Team Leader, Chemistry
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