Areas of expertise include the design of bifunctional ligands for radiopharmaceutical applications, magnetic resonance imaging contrast agents, and optical imaging probes based on metal chelates.

We have hands on experience with the key challenges involved with early stage drug development projects and understand the necessity of integrating a sound quality system from the start.

Areas of Consulting:

Choosing the appropriate chelating agent for specific applications

Not all ligands are created equally and deciding upon the best one to satisfy your objectives is not always an easy process. There are many aspects to consider when making this choice:

Matching the metal ion with an appropriate chelator
What type of environment will the chelate have to tolerate?
Factors relevant to in vitro or in vivo applications
Chelate stability – factors that can affect performance
Kinetics – How fast does complexation need to occur – a key point for nuclear medicine applications

Deciding upon the correct bifunctional linker for optimal conjugation.

Conjugation reactions can be challenging as each new targeting molecule is unique with respect to optimal conditions. In general there are three types of reactive functional groups used for the preparation of most conjugates:

Isothiocyante – reactive with primary amine residues
Activated NHS ester – reactive with primary amine residues
Maleimide – reactive with thiol groups

Intellectual asset development

Often times it is desirable to have a novel chelation technology that can create greater value for a potential new product. Our staff has 25 years experience in IP strategy related to medical chelation chemistry applications and can provide customers with skilled guidance for attaining the desired goal.

Customized chelation chemistry applications (magnetic resonance, nuclear and optical imaging)
Process chemistry and ligand design
General chelation chemistry and ligand synthesis
Pre-clinical and early stage clinical planning

Commercial Development Services:

Technology Transfer
Preparation of drug master files (DMF)