About BioBlocks, Inc.

We strive to excel at providing medicinal chemistry services and developing building blocks for drug discovery. Founded in San Diego in 2002 to establish a results-based service model and an innovative product line, BioBlocks has developed successful lead optimization collaborations and built a comprehensive collection of over 3900 carefully selected advanced intermediates for drug discovery.

We believe that results-based medicinal chemistry services are vital to the drug discovery process. Setting itself apart from industry standard FTE based collaboration models, BioBlocks forges collaborations based on defined endpoint deliverables. Instead of running FTE cycles and delivering a set number of compounds, BioBlocks aims to extend its partners’ medicinal chemistry capacity by working synergistically to meet their objectives. This unique, high quality service is offered at competitive rates thanks to our highly skilled team of medicinal chemists in San Diego and Budapest, Hungary. Innovative compound design, patent analysis and preparation, project management and customer service are exclusively handled by the San Diego headquarters team. This provides an exceptional package of excellent service, highly interactive management, world-class medicinal chemistry, and cost effective partnerships.

We believe innovative and unique drug-like building blocks are a vital part of the drug discovery toolkit. Researchers need to quickly obtain novel, diverse, drug-like compounds for a wide range of targets, and we’ve designed our ever-evolving product line around this key challenge. BioBlocks has added an average of 400 building blocks per year, and currently has over 3900 building blocks in its catalog. These include beta-amino acids, quinolines, benzylpiperidines, kinase-targeted amines, enones, natural product-derived scaffolds, functionalized heterocycles and quinazolines. A depth of experience and accumulated know-how means that BioBlocks customers can count on delivery in two weeks or less.

Please find further information and contact details in our BioBlocks Medicinal Chemistry Capabilities PDF

Management Bios

Peter Pallai, Founder, President and Chief Executive Officer

Dr. Peter Pallai has served as CEO of BioBlocks since 2002, and has 23 years of experience in managing drug discovery programs. As head of Medicinal Chemistry Departments at Arqule and Ontogen, he led lead identification and optimization efforts of drug discovery teams utilizing the companies’ parallel chemistry platforms. At Arqule, he served as a leader of the company’s collaborative research program and had an industry-wide overview of hit to lead programs for a multitude of targets. Previously, at Procept Inc. Dr. Pallai developed an interdisciplinary drug discovery platform for protein structure based lead discovery in collaboration with Harvard and MIT investigators. He served as Director of Chemistry and as a leader of the company’s AIDS program, resulting in the development of a clinical candidate. Earlier in his career at Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals Inc., he established and led the International Viral Protease Therapeutic Program. Prior to his industrial positions, Dr. Pallai held academic appointments at University of California, San Diego, and was a Fogarty Postdoctoral Fellow at the National Institutes of Health. Dr. Pallai holds a Ph.D. in organic chemistry from the University of Szeged, Hungary, and has published numerous scientific papers and co-authored patents on compounds of therapeutic significance.

Warren Wade, Director of Medicinal Chemistry, BioBlocks USA

Dr. Wade joined the management team at BioBlocks, Inc. in April 2008 to manage BioBlocks' Lead Optimization collaborations. Dr. Wade brings his first-hand experience to lead chemistry innovation, cheminformatics and the application of new technologies for lead optimization while applying his goal-oriented program management skills to BioBlocks’ drug discovery team. Previously, he spent 7 years at Neurocrine Biosciences as a Director of Medicinal Chemistry where he advanced two small molecule candidates for Investigational New Drug (IND) filing. One candidate is currently in Phase II trials for endocrine indications. In his role at the Neurocrine, Dr. Wade managed interdisciplinary drug discovery teams, timelines, and project goals. Prior to this, Dr. Wade spent 8 years Abbott where he was involved in developing the Company’s combinatorial chemistry program to maturity, and applied parallel synthesis and solid phase synthesis for medicinal chemistry. Dr. Wade is an author of over 40 publications and a co-inventor on 6 issued US patents. He has Ph.D. in Bioorganic Chemistry from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and a BA in Chemistry from Cornell University.

László Urögdi, Director of Medicinal Chemistry, BioBlocks, Kft.

Dr. Ürögdi joined BioBlocks in 2006 to mentor and direct the scientific teams at BioBlocks, Kft. Previously, he was at ComGenex Inc., where he spent 3 years as the Director of Medicinal Chemistry. As Project Manager, he was responsible for medicinal chemistry projects and library projects conducted in cooperation with several partners. Prior to joining Comgenex, he spent 12 years at Biorex R&D Co. as the Head, Synthetic and Analytical Chemistry. He was responsible for the synthetic, computational, analytical and IP of the Company in the fields of diabetes, cardio-vascular and chronic CNS diseases. Dr. Ürögdi oversaw the chemistry development of drug candidates, including the co-development program of the Company's first lead compound up to the Phase II clinical trial stage in collaboration with Abbott Laboratories. His career has included three years with the research group of Prof. Alan R. Katritzky (University of Florida, Gainesville) as group leader and later as Senior Group Leader, dealing with development of new organic synthetic methodologies. Earlier in his career he spent 20 years at the Gideon Richter Pharmaceutical Works Ltd. as a research chemist and research group leader. Dr. Ürögdi holds a M.Sc. in Chemical Engineering, a Diploma in Pharmaceutical Research, and a Ph.D. degree in theoretical and organic chemistry, all from the Technical University of Budapest, and a Candidate degree in Chemical Science from the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.

Please find further information and contact details in our BioBlocks Medicinal Chemistry Capabilities PDF