Lhasa, a UK educational charity which creates in silico prediction and database systems for use in metabolism, toxicology and related sciences, has been given an award for its toxicity prediction software.
Lhasa was named “Business Master of Innovation” at the Yorkshire Business Masters Awards, in acknowledgement of its work with 350 of its members, including AstraZeneca, GlaxoSmithKline and Pfizer.
The Business Masters Awards aim to find and recognise the best Yorkshire's businesses.
Last year, the company also won the Queen’s Award for Innovation.
The company was founded as a not-for-profit organisation to deliver public benefit computer aided reasoning in scientific software.
Lhasa was initially based in the chemistry department at the University of Leeds and employed only a handful of scientists. It now employs 130 people in the UK, Poland and the USA. It recently opened a new hub in Newcastle, UK.
Judges were impressed by Lhasa’s Derek Nexus software for predicting toxicity. It has been adopted by many pharmaceutical and chemical companies, regulators, and academic institutions worldwide.
Using structure-activity relationships – the relationship between the chemical or 3D structure of a molecule and its biological activity – created by Lhasa’s scientists, Derek Nexus provides an early indication of the potential toxicity of query compounds.
By generating these predictions, it can be used to fill gaps in in-house data.
David Watson, CEO of Lhasa, said:
“Our software equips the medical research community with the information they need to move their drug development work forward and prioritise which compounds they want to invest more time and money in.”
“This means they can get their drugs to the public earlier, more safely and potentially at a lower cost.”