BioNumerik is a leader in a powerful new area called “mechanism-based” drug discovery, which employs multi-disciplinary science, including chemistry, biology and quantum physics, integrated with high performance computational technologies, to identify, simulate and better understand the mechanisms by which drugs and their targets function. Our integrated approach aims to streamline drug development by selecting and optimizing promising drugs or compounds earlier in the discovery process, reducing the time and expense involved in laboratory testing. Our computational simulations attempt to approximate the way drugs function within the human body, giving an early assessment of the expected efficacy and safety of a new drug before time is spent in clinical or even preclinical trials.
Using our approach, we can design and develop compounds from a variety of starting points, including known drug classes, known or novel drug targets or genomic sequence data. Once we have identified the likely mechanisms of action of the target and characterized the properties of potential drug candidates, we use an iterative process of computer analysis and laboratory testing to select, study, and optimize the most promising candidates. We believe that this approach positions us to advance higher quality, lower risk candidates into clinical trials.
Mechanism-based drug discovery has been pioneered by Dr. Frederick Hausheer, our founder and an expert in pharmaceutical discovery, clinical oncology drug development, pharmacology and in the development and application of pharmaceutical discovery software and supercomputing applications. We believe our approach represents a novel method of drug discovery relative to drug screening, automated screening and combinatorial chemistry, and rational drug design.
BioNumerik views its mechanism-based approach, which combines medicine, quantum physics, and pharmaceutical sciences with high performance computing, as a promising new approach to drug discovery and development. We believe there are a number of key advantages that set our approach apart from traditional and emerging approaches.
BioNumerik's approach begins by defining the desired clinical and chemical / biochemical performance properties for potential new drug candidates. We then use physics-based computer simulations and laboratory evaluation to engineer and test compounds designed to meet these characteristics.
Advantage: Because of the quantum and statistical mechanics aspects of our approach, we have a basis to identify and rank the potential efficacy, safety, metabolism, formulation, and chemical properties of new compounds in a quantitative or semi-quantitative manner.
BioNumerik's high-performance computing center is integrated with its laboratory facilities to promote real-time evaluation and optimization of the drug discovery process.
Advantage: The use of high-performance computers creates the potential for a faster and more comprehensive examination of large numbers of new molecular entities.
We believe that traditional technologies based on screening for biochemical/biological activity alone are less likely to be successful in a competitively sustainable manner because of the infinite chemical and structural possibilities for any new drug and because there are many other properties that are needed in order to engineer a new drug, such as drug formulation, delivery, safety and metabolism.
Advantage: A mechanistic information-based approach that, by the combined use of physics based simulations of biological, chemical and biochemical interactions combined with laboratory observations effectively reduces the number of molecular considerations in a non-random and knowledge-based manner, has greater potential to be effective in discovery and development.
Our approach and technology are based on the expedient, concurrent examination of multiple pharmaceutical performance characteristics very early in the discovery process.
Advantage: This approach offers an improvement over rational drug design and other approaches that primarily focus only on targeting and potency by including other important performance characteristics such as safety, delivery, formulation, and synthesis.
Combinatorial chemistry and related approaches frequently rely on the use of simple, well-known chemical reactions, inexpensive materials, and limited experimental conditions (i.e., room temperature and no pressure or vacuum) to rapidly generate large numbers of organic compounds. As a result, combinatorial chemistry may exclude a wide range of compounds that cannot be made under such circumstances, and can also be prone to contamination with inadvertently synthesized compounds.
Advantage: BioNumerik's mechanism-based approach is not subject to many of the inherent limitations of combinatorial chemistry and provides a potentially broader range of compounds for analysis. With the use of high-performance computing systems, we focus on attributes including safety, delivery, formulation and synthesis before the compound is physically produced for clinical testing.
