A Conversation on Modern Lead Generation Strategies

Edel O'Regan:
Hello everybody. This is Edel O'Regan, Vice President of Production at CHI. We're here to tell you about two great short courses to take place June 14th as part of the 15th Annual World Pre-Clinical Congress at the Westin Boston Waterfront.

I'm here with the Chair and Co-Organizer of these short courses, Dr. Jeorg Holenz who is Director of Discovery and Pre-Clinical Sciences at Astra Zeneca Neuroscience.

Joerg Holenz:
Yeah, thank you Edel.

Edel O'Regan:
Joerg, what can people expect to learn and take away from these in-depth short courses?

Joerg Holenz:
We had the idea for a while to organize these short courses because we believe that lead generation is key for project success. This is where chemical assets are first defined and as such it's a discipline that's rapidly evolving but also faces many challenges. So this year we were able to gather a selection of the best lead generation experts from [Norco 00:00:55] Boston Companies around us, and we want to teach a deep understanding of this important discipline.

Edel O'Regan:
What are some of the topics that will be covered?

Joerg Holenz:
So we have been dividing this course into two parts. The first part will focus on hit generation methods, because this is the first step where those hit and chemical assets are created. We will talk about modern methods like DNA coded libraries and fragment based lead generation, but we will also report recent developments, for example screening new chemical space or how virtual screening can be used to rationally design leads. We finally also cover how hits can be created from published data, how you can create your own IP, and we will have an exercise where you can develop and own active generation plan for diverse projects, which is an activity that is absolutely key in laying the success for lead generation.

The second part focuses then on the hit to lead phase and we will have many practical examples there, how those hits found in the first part can then be converted into leads. We will also touch anciliary techniques like, for example, the affinity based methods and quality metrics and all of these activities help us to understand if we have leads that are able to be converted into drugs. We will get an answer to the questions if you're ready to convert those into the lead optimization phase.

Finally we have a lecture from Merck covering the latest trends and we'll also have here an exercise where people can practice their own skills in selecting hit structures that they would convert to leads.

Edel O'Regan:
Who could consider attending these short courses?

Joerg Holenz:
They have been designing this course for all scientists who are directly or indirectly involved in lead generation. We start at beginner level and then very quickly advance to the specialist areas, so we believe that we would cover a broader audience and it should be interesting and helpful for everyone involved in those activities because we have a lot of practical examples. We will cover recent developments but we will also teach the basics.

Edel O'Regan:
Joerg, it was a pleasure speaking with you today about our upcoming Lead Generation Short Courses to take place at the World Pre-Clinical Short Course in Boston. You can find more information about these short courses at WorldPreclinicalConference.com.