The ARK™* knowledge-based drug discovery platform is designed to integrate interdisciplinary data from chemistry and biology as well as public domain knowledge with proprietary data (i.e. articles and patents with in-house data), leveraging this archived knowledge by applying predictive drug discovery tools useful at all stages of the lead discovery process.

ARK™ serves as a platform to provide medicinal and computational chemists with easy-to-use tools for organizing knowledge around a target or target family at the outset of a project, for grouping known inhibitors into patentable chemotypes, and for applying predictive technology (e.g. QSAR models and virtual library enumeration) to help prioritize compounds for synthesis or purchase. ARK's predictive eScreen modules for potency and selectivity are specific for a target or gene-family, while eADME and eTox can be applied to any small molecule drug discovery project.

The ARK™ architecture is a growing repository of chemistry, biology, and derived computational models - in essence a "learning machine" - that automatically develops and utilizes its predictive capability to generate new knowledge. ARK™ is fully web-based to make the technology available to bench chemists and computational chemists alike, and is built upon accepted industry-standard database platforms and software (Oracle / Daylight).

• Preserving and Sharing Knowledge
  • Reaction Archive
  • SAR Archive
  • Power Searching

• Virtual Chemistry Exploration
  • Virtual Library Enumeration and Exploration
  • eScreen® and Descriptor Prioritization

• Accelerates Lead Discovery Process
  • Use predictive knowledge-based descriptors to reduce the number of compounds for screening.
  • ARK's enumeration is fast and can easily handle millions of structures at a time.
• Makes Bio Screening Campaigns More Efficient and Less Costly
  • Help scientists focus time and resources on molecules that are more likely to succeed.
• Provides Enterprise-wide Technology to Manage Proprietary Knowledge
  • Create connections between biology and chemistry data, helping all scientists to see the "big picture".
• User-friendly Interface Mimics the Workflow of Medicinal Chemists
  • Designed by chemists for chemists, ARK™ does not require extensive training in order to integrate into existing workflows.
  • Superior integration of chemistry and biology data.
  • Easy to incorporate into existing IT infrastructure.
• Use Selectivity Panel to Process Millions of Virtual Molecules at the Early Design Stage
  • "Hot Spots" alert researchers early on to select and monitor anti-targets.
  • Reduce failure rate in the clinic due to early identification of selectivity/toxicity concerns.

• In silico identification of diverse chemotypes.
• In silico optimization based upon a complete range of properties and predictive models.
• Computation of a "selectivity matrix" of predicted biological activity for large sets of compounds across an entire gene family.
• Iterative design of libraries with desirable selectivity profiles using virtual library enumeration coupled with eScreen prioritization.
• Construction of analog libraries around top scoring scaffolds.

Technology Access

ARK™ is available either online through an Application Service Provider (ASP) agreement, or it can be deployed behind the company firewall.

* NOTE: The ARK platform was formerly named LUCIA.