Kyiv, Ukraine and Villigen, Switzerland, April 7, 2026. Chemspace, a drug discovery engine providing machine learning-guided support for hit identification, hit to lead, and lead optimization using the largest purchasable collection of chemicals and biologics, Enamine, a leading provider of small molecules and drug discovery services, and the Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI), the largest research institute for natural and engineering sciences in Switzerland, have announced today a strategic collaboration aimed at creating an efficient platform for fragment-based drug discovery in the ultra-large chemical space.
Enamine’s REAL composing of trillions of easy-to-make virtual compounds provides enormous opportunities to accelerate drug discovery. The efficient navigation in this chemical space is still challenging. The partners joined their efforts to apply the power of fragment-based drug discovery to quickly produce promising lead compounds. Chemspace has recently developed the REAL Crystallographic Library (REAL Fragment Library | Chemspace) to enable a hit finding tool with straight analogues in Enamine’s REAL. This library will be screened against protein targets in the Fast Fragment and Compound Screening (FFCS) Facility of the Swiss Light Source, by soaking its 524 compounds into protein crystals and solving the structure to detect binding of fragments and to identify their binding poses. Based on this information, options for follow-up compounds in Enamine REAL can rapidly be identified. Further iterative crystallographic studies and compound development in a close collaboration between the partners will offer a streamlined pathway for lead generation.
With the creation of the REAL Crystallographic Library, we provide our customers with a powerful new tool for fragment-based drug discovery. In partnership with Enamine and PSI, we now offer a seamless, end-to-end solution: from fragment hit identification to the synthesis and experimental validation of small molecule hits, accelerating the path from idea to discovery,
said Olga Tarkhanova, PhD, CEO of Chemspace.
May Sharpe, PhD, Paul Scherrer Institute, added: Fragment-based Drug Development has proved to be a very effective method for generating potent lead compounds with favourable properties for further development into drug candidates. One of the stumbling blocks for wider uptake of this approach has been the need for extensive cooperation between the biomedical experts who identify a protein target, structural experts who detect and characterise fragment binding, and medicinal chemistry experts who provide fragments as a starting point as well as develop hits into potent lead compounds. It is amazing to be able to combine our capabilities of the Swiss Light Source at the PSI, with the world-famous expertise, richness and quality of synthetic chemistry provided by Enamine. We hope that this will encourage many scientists who need small molecule binders and drug-like lead compounds to try to find them using a fragment-based approach.
Vladimir Ivanov, PhD, Executive Vice President at Enamine, stated: Enamine has built the world’s most extensive purchasable chemical dataset, Enamine REAL. Fragment growing within this chemical space opens unprecedented opportunities. We are proud to partner with Chemspace and PSI, accelerating the journey from fragments to tomorrow’s medicines.