Section Head Automation Technologies Roche, Basel-Stadt, Switzerland
The identification of high quality starting points for small molecule projects is the center of our Lead Discovery (LD) department. Knowing that we will move our teams into new buildings in 2024 has given us the unique opportunity to rethink and challenge our current ways of working towards new paradigms supported by holistic hardware and software infrastructure.
Based on an assessment of the status quo and the option space, we have designed our LD Assay and Screening Roadmap (LASR), covering our entire assay value chain from assay development to screening and routine assay usage during medicinal chemistry optimization. We aim at a future state that enables seamless assay development and miniaturization and tailored screening approaches, which requires increasing flexibility in screening as well as the removal of bottlenecks in assay development, compound logistics and screening plate production.
With LASR we achieve this by moving away from complex and static automation platforms and implementing a modular environment consisting of smaller, more approachable systems that can be adapted to the respective demands. Facilitated access to automation systems already during assay development will minimize the need of duplication or time intensive transfer steps. Modularity will also support the balanced parallel execution of primary screening campaigns and profiling assays, reduces equipment redundancy, and ultimately allows fast portfolio delivery. Our plan encompasses a master agreement with one key solution provider who will work with us on an iterative implementation plan, and who will be in charge of defining precise workflows and corresponding software components to integrate and run the new setup.
We will present our approach to establishing LASR, connecting our design principles with our option space and the overall architecture principles, and illustrate the decision making process that we followed to reach our solution concept as well as implementation plan.
