Here at ValiRx, we are proud to retain the services of a core team of scientific advisors who provide expert opinions on all pipeline projects across a wide range of therapeutic areas.
We caught up with the team to find out what motivates them to be part of our
What motivates you to be part of ValiRx's
'The intellectual challenge, the freedom of thought, and the opportunity to encounter some truly amazing and novel projects within a company with the willingness and expertise to take them forward.'
Dr
'I am fundamentally a scientist but with business training and experience in commercialising technology, so what motivates me to work with ValiRx is the breadth of new science and potential clinical opportunities we get to review as well as the potential to transform patient care with innovative new medicines. Working with a great team to identify ground-breaking new approaches to treating unmet clinical needs, particularly in the underserved women's health space, is very rewarding. It's always good to stretch oneself intellectually and broaden our horizons and we have the opportunity to do this with the various programmes we review.'
Dr
'The ValiRx compound screening-to-SPV model offers a unique opportunity to engage with third parties and co-develop pharmaceuticals at an earlier stage than may otherwise attract larger financial investments by established pharmaceutical companies. The role of the
'All compounds are evaluated with specific medical and commercial goals in mind, and a portfolio is being built to minimise risk and maximise the chances of success. As ValiRx is a publicly listed company, I am particularly interested in bridging the aims of a drug-development scientist, with that of a fruitful commercial business model, and the combination of these two aspects of the strategy greatly motivates me.'
Dr
'As part of the current collaboration agreement between
Dr Christophe Chassagnole (
'My main motivation for being on the
Professor
What trends are you currently seeing in biomedical research
'An increasing interest and dependence in big data sets and high-level computing to address and de-risk the many challenges of drug discovery and development. Unfortunately, our ability as a scientific community to understand the underlying mathematics and, sometimes, even the basic assumptions made in the development of the software we are now relying on, has not kept pace with our ability to produce the ever-increasing volumes of raw data this approach requires.'
Dr
'There are two clear trends in biomedical research that I've seen emerging over the past decade. The first is biomarker led drug discovery which is driving the trend towards informed patient selection and personalised therapy. This has the potential to diagnose diseases earlier, direct the right patients to specific therapies, maximise response and minimise off target and side effects and therefore deliver significant improvements in disease management. The second is immune oncology where the power of the patient's immune system can be sued to eradicate disease. Checkpoint inhibitors, cell therapies like CAR-T and CAR-NK approaches and epigenetic inhibitors to resensitise immune-tolerant cancer cells, as well as modulators of the tumour microenvironment offer exciting new opportunities to understand and treat cancer.'
Dr
'Trends in biomedical research have shifted away from the primary in-house generation of new drugs to a much greater degree of in-licensing. The ValiRx SPV model fills a void to enable much smaller and primarily academic institutions to scale out their new discoveries into a fit-for-commercialisation package. Recent publications have highlighted the attractions of the preclinical SPV model, and ValiRx is aiming to set the standard in this field. Also, as contract-research organisations have grown with increasing pharmaceutical company out-licensing, as an additional strand of the business, the development of the tCRO has been particularly impressive. By acquiring a truly novel and IP-protected series of patient-derived cancer cell lines, Inaphaea now has the ability to compete with very established CROs, but with an unparalleled range of services on offer. Having niche products to advertise, along with a solid base of scientific support, makes the laboratory highly attractive to new customers and the streamlined set-up is imparting a level of flexibility that can adapt to meet the needs of a diverse portfolio of potential new clients. On the drug development side, and not just in oncology, I have observed pipelines shift from small molecules toward biologics and in particular to bispecific and multi-specific compounds (Ab or Ab likes). This is noticeable not only in emerging biotech but also in established large pharma.'
Dr
'In my particular domain of interest - dosing and scheduling of cancer drugs - the recent Project Optimus initiative from the FDA has increased interest in model-informed decision tools and services. Project Optimus aims to create a paradigm shift for dose optimisation and selection from the Maximum Tolerated Dose (MTD) towards the finding of the Biological Effective Dose (BED) using modelling and simulation.'
Dr Christophe Chassagnole (
'Here at the
Professor
The project review process
Following the initial internal review of a scientific project, the most promising are shared with the
Discussions take place before the next
By providing transparent and expert scientific advice, our
Contact:
Tel: +44 (0)2476 796496
Email: info@valirx.com
(C) 2023 Electronic News Publishing, source