Research strategy

The increasing incidence of multi-drug resistant pathogenic bacteria is a priority concern in the medical community in many parts of the world. Infections caused by multi-resistant pathogens as well as resistance of tumors towards currently available cancer therapy are frequently encountered problems and have been associated with prolonged hospital stays, higher healthcare costs and increased mortality. Research at Basilea is mainly concentrated on finding ways to overcome resistance towards current antibiotics and cancer treatment.

Basilea's research emphasis is placed on focused optimization of successful compound classes addressing established targets (e.g. beta-lactams) as well as pursuing novel targets through  the discovery of drug leads by screening of compound libraries and structure-based drug design. The discovery of new medicines is supported by state-of-the-art technologies integrating the areas of genomics, enzyme kinetics, assay development, screening, cell biology, medicinal chemistry, crystallography, modeling and pharmacology. The project teams in Basel work closely together with scientists in Basilea China on the search for novel molecules that have distinct advantages over available therapies.