Technology

Making and testing new molecular entities (compounds) is a fundamental requirement for modern drug discovery. Over the last ten years, as the ability to test molecules for therapeutic activity has grown explosively, so has the need to make compounds faster and cheaper. Over that period of time, our group at Sphinx Laboratories (Eli Lilly & Co.) developed a number of ways to accomplish this task. It was done, not by developing complex instruments, but by understanding the fundamental challenges of organic synthesis and bringing the appropriate application of technology to bear on the problem. The emphasis has been on simplicity, flexibility, ease of learning and ease of use. We believe that, in the future, the tools that survive will look a lot like the tools we have developed today.

SynthArray-24 in various configurations