Sai Life Sciences, a global contract research, development and manufacturing organization (CRO-CDMO), opened its Sai Schrödinger Research Laboratories (SSRL) at its R&D campus in Hyderabad, India.

Karen Akinsanya, president of R&D said, “We selected Sai Life Sciences as our CRO late last year, and we are extremely pleased that they are now poised to begin work on our programs with a highly experienced and dedicated team at a state-of-the-art facility. Sai Life Sciences will play an important role in advancing our drug discovery and early development activities, and we look forward to working closely together.”

In January 2023, Sai Life Sciences entered into a 5-year strategic agreement with Schrödinger. Sai Life Sciences commenced the build-up of the facility along with recruitment of scientific staff, to drive the project to completion in an accelerated time frame.

Krishna Kanumuri, CEO & Managing Director, Sai Life Sciences, said, “Our collaboration with Schrödinger marks an exciting new start for us at Sai Life Sciences, with a dedicated facility to support multiple discovery programs. The trust they’ve placed in us is a testimony to the advances we have made in the scale, scope and depth of our integrated drug discovery capabilities. I look forward to a productive collaboration.”

The Sai Life Sciences’ R&D campus in Genome Valley, SSRL is a dedicated facility for integrated discovery work streams including medicinal & synthetic chemistry, in vitro biology, and process chemistry. SSRL will access other Sai capabilities such as in vitro ADME and in vivo PK as needed. The relationship will support advancement of programs that leverage Schrödinger’s validated computational platform. Currently, SSRL has 75 employees across full-time-equivalents (FTEs) in Medicinal Chemistry, Biology, Process Chemistry and Analytical Chemistry.