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Objectives

A collaborative approach to boost early drug discovery by bridging the gap between target and phenotype identification and hit finding

The European Lead Factory (ELF) was established in 2013 to find valuable lead candidates that were previously inaccessible – compounds that can result in the development of novel treatment options for patients. To achieve this goal, the ELF established a high-quality compound library and the opportunity for eligible researchers to screen those compounds against potential drug targets.

High-quality compounds

In an unprecedented joint-force approach, eight members of the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations (EFPIA) decided to give the European research community and each other access to their heavily safe-guarded compound libraries. By contributing over 300,000 compounds to the European Lead Factory compound library, their aim was to boost drug discovery within Europe. One of the objectives of the ELF was to complement the EFPIA compound collection with another 200,000 innovative compounds, synthesized specifically for the Public Compound Collection. To achieve this, library design proposals were sourced from academic groups and small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) throughout Europe.

Together, the EFPIA and Public Compound Collections formed what is now a unique >500,000-strong ELF compound library. A dedicated software informatics system called the Honest Data Broker, manages the intellectual property of the contributed assets.

Screening opportunities

The ultimate deliverable of the European Lead Factory was to provide the highest quality lead candidates to stimulate drug discovery programmes.

To find valuable lead structures, the compounds in our library were screened against drug targets and phenotypes by means of ultra-high throughput screening (uHTS) and high content screening at multiple screening centres at each of the participating EFPIA partners, as well as at the European Screening Centre (ESC).

The ELF allowed the participating EFPIA companies to access the full compound library for a limited number of screening programmes.

In addition, the ESC provided European researchers with the unique opportunity to screen their potential drug targets and phenotypes against the ELF compound library via calls for proposals.

In February 2022, ELF closed its open calls for screening proposals and the project officially came to a close on 30 November 2023.

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