From molecular design to biological testing, early drug discovery follows iterative Design–Make–Test–Analysis (DMTA) cycles. Feedback from each round informs the next research decision. How can teams generate decision-enabling data sooner and move promising compounds into optimization earlier?
This is where Direct-to-Biology (D2B) comes in. Viva Biotech's D2B platform truly seamlessly unites medicinal chemistry, high-throughput chemical synthesis, biological evaluation, structural biology, and CADD/AIDD.
What Is D2B?
D2B involves nanomole-scale in-plate synthesis of hundreds or tens of thousands of fully elaborated compounds, followed by testing unpurified or minimally purified reaction mixtures in biochemical or cell-based assays. By reducing the need to purify each compound individually, the approach brings upstream synthesis and downstream testing into a streamlined workflow.
Why D2B?
For drug discovery teams, the value of D2B goes beyond time and cost savings.
D2B can compress DMTA cycles from months to weeks, significantly reducing the corresponding time and cost. The approach also enables early structure–activity relationship (SAR) and access to key data—such as ChromLogD, EPSA, and ADME profiles—that are traditionally obtained at later stages. Feeding these data back into early-stage helps de-risk projects.
Data generated through D2B can also be used to train algorithms and support AI-assisted drug design. Rapid hit-to-lead optimization and chemical space mapping may can help establish a competitive advantage in patent landscape.
Core Strengths of Viva Biotech's D2B Platform
An effective D2B workflow relies on more than a single platform. It requires coordination across chemistry, screening, biological assays, protein science, and computational design. Viva Biotech excels this technology by bringing these capabilities together through five core strengths.
Extensive Chemistry Expertise
Viva Biotech provides high-throughput screening and optimization of reactions and reagents, including evaluation of potential interference with downstream assays. Its D2B platform offers innovative, ready-to-use, pre-optimized key reactions that deliver high yields under mild conditions, along with unique protection–deprotection strategies for D2B library synthesis.
World-Leading Screening Center
The platform offers fully automated in-plate synthesis at nanomole and sub-nanomole scales, compound and building block (BB) management, and biochemical and cell-based assays. Viva Biotech also maintains approximately 100 ready-to-couple partial libraries. It's collection of approximately 60,000 building blocks (BB), including many commercially unavailable BBs, supports both DEL and D2B, and is one of the largest cross the industry.
Deep Expertise in Biochemical and Cell-Based Assays
Readily available biophysical, biochemical, cellular, and functional assays enable rapid compound evaluation without time-consuming assay development. These assays yield highly reproducible results that correlate well with data obtained from individually tested compounds.
Excellence in Protein Production and Structural Biology
High-quality protein production and structural biology expertise help ensure reliable assay results.
Integrated CADD/AIDD Capabilities
Viva Biotech's CADD/AIDD team leverages powerful computational infrastructure and GPU clusters to enhance molecular design. Close coupling with experimental workflows also helps improve discovery outcomes.
PROTAC Case Study: Comparing Crude-Mixture and Purified-Compound Results
PROTAC discovery involves multiple molecular components and extensive optimization, making it a perfect representative application of D2B. Viva Biotech's targeted protein degradation (TPD) toolkits include approximately 300 E3–linker conjugates and 100 protein-of-interest (POI) ligands to support rapid compound synthesis and evaluation.
During bio-profiling, the platform brings together target and E3 binding assays, target degradation assays, and cell survival and functional assays to evaluate compounds across multiple readouts. Our results showed that degradation assay results from crude reaction mixtures correlated well with those from purified, isolated compounds. Selected hits are then re-synthesized, purified, and retested. Some confirmed hits advanced to medicinal chemistry and others to a second D2B round, creating an iterative discovery loop. Both paths generated lead-like compounds with over a 100-fold potency increase.
Beyond PROTACs, Viva Biotech has also extended its D2B platform to peptides, including cyclic peptides, with a focus on hit-to-lead optimization in peptide discovery programs. This approach aims to improve screening throughput, accelerate iterative optimization, and increase project success rates, while providing integrated support for molecular validation and optimization. As new molecular modalities emerge, Viva Biotech continues to expand the applications of its D2B platform, with solutions available for modalities such as IMiDs, CELMoDs, and RIBOTACs.
Integrated Discovery: From D2B Screening to Further Optimization
Efficient drug discovery requires close coordination across every stage of the process.
Viva Biotech integrates key D2B capabilities—from protein production and assay development to library design, synthesis, screening, and hit validation—within a unified service framework. This approach streamlines coordination across teams and service providers. Following hit confirmation, projects can be supported by downstream structural biology, medicinal chemistry, and DMPK services to further optimize potency, selectivity, ADME, and other key properties.
By connecting these capabilities, Viva Biotech aims to accelerate early discovery and help promising compounds progress efficiently toward further optimization.
To learn more about Viva Biotech's D2B platform, please contact our team of experts at info@vivabiotech.com.