Drug Discovery Research Lab was established in the year 2006 in Department of Pharmacy. It is an over busy facility equipped with ultra modern software like Discovery Studio, TSAR, SYSTAT, Chemdraw Ultra and many more. Our drug discovery team comprises of people with diverse background like bioinformatics, organic and medicinal chemistry and pharmacology.

DDRL has yielded a number of novel structurally diverse lead compounds with potent in-vitro activity against targets like PDE, Urotensin receptor, DHFR, Malaria etc. In fact at DDRL we have developed a complete in-silico HTS program with sufficient emphasis on experimental validation of the identified hits. To name few among many identified lead compounds AMPDE001 is the most potent PDE 5 inhibitors and APUTR004 and APUTR005 are most active Urotensin receptor antagonists.

Therapeutic areas

 In view of high mortality rate, emergence of resistance and lack of efficacy, the department has identified some important therapeutic areas. The research has been directed to discovery of novel small molecules with high affinity for different targets (receptors/enzymes) in these areas.  In conjunction to evaluation of pharmacodynamic properties adequate emphasis is placed to ascertain good pharmacokinetic profile of the discovered molecules.

Cardiovascular system

Cardiovascular research has been directed to vital targets like PDE5, Urotensin-II, soluble epoxide hydroxylase and angiotensin-II.

Central nervous system

In view of poor availability of drugs for disease like Alzheimer, efforts are made to identify novel small molecules active against proteins like tau and NMDA.

Endocrinology

Among various metabolic disorders the research has been focused on the design and development of c-Jun-N-terminal kinase-1 and glucagon receptor antagonists.

Infectious disease

In quest of potent anti-microbials, the research has been directed to discovery of potent inhibitors of CYP51, DHFR and HIV Protease.