Advanced Pharmacology for Drug Discovery: Traps, Tips, and Tricks

Characterizing and understanding the interactions of potential therapeutic agents with their targets is fundamental to drug discovery. After first reviewing the fundamentals of pharmacology, we will conduct an in-depth exploration of pharmacology assays and screening funnels as they apply to the validation of hits and their optimization into clinical candidates. A key aim will be to distill important, but often poorly known, pharmacology and screening information in a concise format.

This course will surface pitfalls and offer mitigations strategies on a range of relevant topics with a goal of providing practical information to help prosecute drug discovery projects more effectively from project inception all the way to clinical trials.   

Who Should Attend?

• Biologists using in vitro assays to characterize small molecules & biologics seeking to gain a deeper understanding of their craft and to gather actionable information for their work
• Medicinal chemists aiming to better interpret the pharmacology data they rely on and to ask critical questions
• Drug discovery scientists hoping to better understand the pharmacology data they encounter in their work

Course Benefits

Attendees will leave this course with:

• Practical knowledge of key concepts and strategies in pharmacology to use to in their day-to-day work and bring back to their organizations.

Course Topics

• Fundamentals of pharmacology: binding and kinetics
• Mechanisms of action: types, value and consequences
• Assays: biochemical and cellular; principles and weaknesses
• Hit validation concepts and activities
• Screening funnels: types, characteristics and evolution
• Strategies for human translation and dose prediction

Instructor

Fabien Vincent, PhD

Fabien Vincent, PhD, is a senior drug discovery scientist with experience as both an in vitro pharmacology group leader and a drug discovery project leader. He gained expertise in pharmacology at Pfizer (2010-2025) as a laboratory head in the Primary Pharmacology Group. There, his laboratory supported the small molecule portfolio of the Immunology & Inflammation research unit, helping deliver 15 clinical candidates with two becoming FDA approved drugs (Abrocitinib, Ritlecitinib).

His remit spanned target identification & validation, designing and executing hit identification & validation strategies, structure-activity relationships (SAR) support, mechanistic studies and study reports for the FDA. His main research interests are centered on drugging tough-but-well-validated targets and improving the translation of preclinical research to patients using physiologically relevant assays and phenotypic screening.