Empowering Australian drug discovery

MedChem Australia is a national drug discovery initiative that works with the Australian biomedical research community and guides early-stage projects through the critical value creation steps where ‘hits’ are optimised to drug candidates with enhanced commercial value and clinical potential.

MedChem Australia provides expert medicinal chemistry & DMPK capability at 80% subsidised cost to selected projects to enhance, accelerate, and enable the development of new small molecule therapeutics. Projects to receive subsidised support are selected through a competitive and independent application process. Applications are invited through annual calls, with researchers from Australian Universities, Medical Research Institutes, and SMEs eligible to apply.

Who we are

MedChem Australia is a partnership between Monash University, the University of Sydney and WEHI, each with a track record of medicinal chemistry excellence and success in commercially-focused drug discovery. Each Node contains state-of-the-art facilities for drug design and synthesis, while DMPK profiling of compounds will be done at the Centre for Drug Candidate Optimisation (CDCO) at Monash.

MedChem Australia was established with $15 million in funding from the Australian Government Department of Health and Aged Care Medical Research Future Fund, Therapeutic Innovation Australia, and the three Nodes, with an initial runway of 5 years.

Our expertise

MedChem Australia operates in the lead generation (hit to lead) and lead optimisation stages of Drug Discovery. We provide industry level medicinal chemistry + DMPK capabilities to advance drug discovery projects.

Selected projects will be allocated to one of the Nodes where MedChem Australia scientists will collaborate with the project provider to plan the chemistry strategy for the project, design compounds, make compounds, generate in vitro & in vivo DMPK data, and help drive the project forward to an investment ready stage.