Compound Management and Enhancement Activities in AstraZeneca
Judith Provis · JALA Journal of the Association for Laboratory Automation · 2005
The merger between Astra AB (Sweden) and Zeneca Group PLC (U.K.) to form AstraZeneca in April 1999 placed considerable demands on the compound management capabilities within the merged company. A strategy was developed and implemented to ensure that the compound management infrastructure fully underpinned current and future drug discovery processes. This overview of compound management within AstraZeneca includes the premerger capabilities, the postmerger activities, and key elements of the AstraZeneca strategy that led to the new fully operational and automated compound management facility at Alderley Park. The tools in place will allow the technologies to change in the various downstream activities with sufficient flexibility to adapt to new demands. New screening strategies are now enabled, whether materials are chosen as selected sets, by rational theories, better use of the big screening capability, or to support difficult targets and assays; the choice is there for the discovery scientists to now exploit.