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Image: Welab Barcelona.
 28.06.2023

Welab Barcelona and MEDINA Foundation will collaborate to accelerate the R&D of new drugs

WeLab Barcelona, an integrated research centre for drug discovery and preclinical development driven by Leitat and located in the Barcelona Science Park, and Fundación MEDINA, a centre of excellence in Innovative Medicines Research, announce their collaboration to provide services for new therapeutic agents, in order to accelerate the identification and development of innovative therapies from small molecule research and natural products.

Accelerating the path to clinical development of drug discovery projects coming from academic, biotechnological or pharmaceutical initiatives is essential for the discovery of new therapeutic strategies.

Welab Barcelona, a unique platform of drug discovery and development integrated in Leitat Technological Centre, will provide access to its comprehensive capabilities, expertise, and in-depth knowledge to support pharmaceutical R&D. MEDINA, an international reference Centre in the discovery of new natural products, will provide access to its unique HTS technology platforms and chemistry expertise to support innovative drug discovery programs.

The collaboration leverages WeLab and MEDINA’s extensive expertise in drug discovery and the wide portfolio of cutting-edge technologies, to facilitate the identification of new compounds and/or speed-up the path to clinical development of drug discovery projects from academia, biotech, or pharmaceutical companies.

In the words of José Miguel Vela, scientific director of WeLab: “Innovation has many ingredients, but a single formula: COLLABORATION. Welab Barcelona is actively collaborating with strategic partners to strengthen the portfolio of R&D services and provide better and faster R&D solutions. This collaboration will allow both private non-for-profit organizations to join forces by adding complementary research capabilities, expertise, and knowledge. It is our strong conviction that collaboration is the way for dealing with health challenges of our time, particularly the discovery of new drugs addressing unmet medical needs”.

In the same vein, Dr Olga Genilloud, scientific director of MEDINA: “We believe that this unique collaboration between two complementary drug discovery Centres and our combined multidisciplinary approach is a unique opportunity to strengthen the drug discovery and development capacities in Spain and to support academics as well as biotech and pharma companies to advance their early preclinical R&D pipelines”.

The two major centres will combine research expertise and knowledge of biology, chemistry, and pharmacology to enable the advancement of new drug identification and development in Spain.