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European Lead Factory testimonial: Jeremy Davis
Jeremy Davis is Head of Hit Discovery at UCB. He is based at the Slough research site in the UK and supports all New Chemical Entity (NCE) projects across UCB’s three main global research sites in the UK, USA and Belgium. His role requires a lot of interdisciplinary collaboration with biologists, chemists, computational and data scientists to develop screening capabilities and evolve UCB’s compound collections.
Jeremy’s career started almost 30 years ago as a medicinal chemist. Since that time, he has had many different roles. In recent years he has focused primarily on finding starting points for projects. This involves working closely with project leads and screening experts in UCB to develop bespoke screening strategies that match targets with the right hit finding technologies and compound collections. UCB has been a long-standing partner in the ELF
We interviewed Jeremy about his experience with the European Lead Factory (ELF).
Can you elaborate on the motivation to join this partnership? What has been your experience of participating in the ELF?
UCB’s motivation to participate was the ambitious goal to try a new way to share compound collections that could benefit both EFPIA members as well as SMEs and public institutions such as universities. We believe that innovation isn’t a solitary pursuit; it thrives in an environment where diverse minds connect and collaborate. By participating in the ELF we are tapping into a collective intelligence that can enrich our thinking and propel us forward. By sharing a small part of our proprietary compound collection, we gained access to a much larger collection that was unique and different to our own. At the same time, we could play our part to support academic groups, charities and SMEs in their early hit finding activities.
The concept of the European Lead Factory is beautifully simple: To share compounds for the good of the community.
What has been the added value of the ELF to your organization?
We had early success in the consortium with the ELF compound library delivering hits that rescued a project which would have been stopped without new chemical matter. In addition, we have had multiple projects where ELF hits have become mature lead series. Indeed, we continue to actively optimise some of these series today. Value has also come from being able to validate biology or stop projects with confidence.
What was it that made the ELF compound library and participating in the ELF so attractive?
The key attraction was to access additional chemical diversity and supplement our own collection. In this regard the ELF compound library was unique in its construction. There is an incorrect assumption that all industry collections cover very similar parts of chemical space. In fact, the reverse is true, which has been shown in other research and the analysis performed by the ELF consortium on the combined collection. Each EFPIA’s contribution is a small window on their previous targets, therapeutic areas and their design philosophy. One of the best routes to diversity is the combination of these different histories and thought processes. This was further enhanced by the contribution of the Public Compound Collection – a purpose-designed collection sourcing ideas from academic and SME contributors. The result was a truly unique screening resource.
In the ELF competitors collaborated in a precompetitive space; can you elaborate on the process and your experience?
The collaboration has been highly rewarding and often surprising. The big idea of pre-competitive compound sharing for mutual benefit was easy to support, attracting a wide range of EFPIA and public partners. The biggest challenge, however, was to engineer a framework which instilled trust and gave confidence to share valuable assets. My personal experience has been overwhelmingly positive working with all parts of the consortium. There has been a high degree of openness and the ability to discuss all aspects of hit discovery pre-competitively. This has ranged from different hit ID technology and compound collection design to hit validation.
We believe that powerful breakthroughs and greater knowledge gains come from open collaboration and partnerships, which is why we make it a priority to connect with such a wide range of stakeholders.
Can you share a result of working with the ELF that you are proud of?
After spending 10 years with the consortium, it’s difficult to pick just one. I would say it is working with a highly committed UCB team, many of whom have also been involved from the start. I confess to being proud that UCB was the first EFPIA company to generate a Hit List as part of the consortium. It is possible we might also produce the last one, which would have a certain circular satisfaction.
What are the most important learnings or takeaways from working with the ELF?
I have loved the opportunity to connect with a wide diversity of people in different organisations and even with people at UCB I may not have had a reason to meet without the ELF. Although the driving force has been the project, my most important learning is the value you can receive from the extended network you create. The chance conversation or exchange of ideas that can open unexpected opportunities.
Working within a consortium can be challenging to balance everyone’s needs. However, once we established how we wanted to work together there has been no looking back. ELF has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my professional career.
How do you see the future of small molecule drug discovery now the ELF is wrapping up its activities?
It is a big loss to see the ELF winding down, especially as an enabler of drug discovery for public institutions, SMEs and charities. The concept of sharing compound libraries pre-competitively remains as valid today as at the start of the collaboration. However, we should also recognise that drug discovery continues to evolve and that the nature of screening technology and advent of AI means that that the ELF would have to evolve as well. The project was hugely ambitious in scope and any future sharing initiative could learn some valuable lessons from the ELF model.