Business


Table 5: Rate structure and pricing variables


proximity to the academic researcher, fostering col- laboration through alliances within their own state or even within their own university. It is likely that this trend will continue, as more universities jump on the bandwagon, seeking their own cores for screening. The layoff of drug discovery scientists from pharma may continue to supply personnel, redistributing top scientists into smaller biotechs, startups and academia.


This fine balance of price in the rate structure is critical to achievement of self-sustainability. It is no small task to set up this delicate structure, and requires a stringent evaluation of the costs of con- sumables, reagents, labour and administration costs. Further, the established rates must be regularly com- pared to the rates of other academic screening cores to evaluate the reasonability of prices.


Throughput


Screening core service labs, like any business, depend on steady, strong throughput of product to provide a steady stream of income, while providing the promised services to the client in a timely man- ner. Compared to pharma screening facilities, most academic HTS cores are small, underfunded, understaffed, with considerably smaller compound libraries and lack medicinal chemists needed to verify hits identified through screening campaigns. But like a small family-owned shop, these relative- ly small academic screening facilities have several unique strengths. The affordability of instruments and microplates and screening reagents has improved, allowing AHTSCFs to offer the same types of screening as pharma, but on a smaller scale of 2,000-50,000 small molecules. These smaller screens are still more than enough for pilot data for grants (2,000 compounds), or screening for novel probes for academic research (50,000 compounds). Table 7 presents an updated list of screening centres, according to the Society for Laboratory Automation and Screening7. Interestingly, the number of academic HTS labs in the US has doubled in the past three years, grow- ing from roughly 22 academic HTS labs in 2008 to at least 44 in 20112. The ever growing number of academic HTS cores brings these services in closer


64


Bottlenecks threaten throughput. Throughput in a AHTSCF varies depending on the type of project, whether it is amenable to HTS, and how developed the assay is prior to delivery to the HTS service core. The automated nature of HTS allows for a faster completion of assays that are robust, with minimal variability, and miniaturised to a 384-well or other microplate format suitable for screening. Assay development and optimisation toward this end are the predominant rate limiting steps to an efficient screening project. Many assays from non-HTS basic research labs are initially not robust enough (or sufficiently miniaturised) to be run on automated screening platforms and work- stations. Assay development and optimisation take many times longer than actually running the high throughput screen, but are critical to generating viable data. If development time is extensive, proj- ect completion takes longer and costs more in labour hours. This in turn discourages new clients, while reducing the total number of projects that can be completed per year. An assay that is too complicated or sensitive to be miniaturised into a 384-well format needs to be identified and before it can cause a throughput-crippling bottleneck. These scenarios highlight the value of consultation with expert HTS staff, who can advise alternative assays, orthogonal methodologies, or more suit- able reagents and experimental systems.


Networking extramural clients Maintaining a steady stream of viable projects and collaborators is essential to the business plan of a screening core. Reaching out to potential clients can be arduous and time-consuming, and even costly. Similarly, for basic research labs seeking help in areas outside of their expertise, it can be very frustrating to navigate the maze of paperwork associated with setting up a contractual agreement with a fee for service lab or contract research organisation (CRO). To alleviate this burden, new web-based services such as ScienceExchange (www.scienceexchange.com) have been formed to help link researchers to service labs. Academic screening labs should participate in these online


Drug Discovery World Winter 2011/12


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