Company introduction
GDBspace is a chemical space-based drug discovery engine – its unique technology applies the chemical space theory, combined with artificial intelligence, to identify small molecules (incl. peptides and peptidomimetics) of interests in a precise and time-efficient manner – hence de-risking projects, increasing success rates, and significantly reducing time and costs.
The Space Peptides laboratory arm is specialized in peptide manufacturing, as well as in vitro / in vivo validation of the molecules of interests. For more information, see: http://spacepeptides.com
Company Locations
Our Locations
Research Center, Messeturm Basel,
Switzerland
R&D collaboration with Uni. Bern,
Switzerland
Cell and animals laboratories in Xiamen, China
Non-GMP and GMP standard pilot plant in Xiamen, China (capacity 50kg/year)
API Factory in Jiangsu, China
(capacity 1100kg/year, in progress）
Satellite Office, Boston, USA
Satellite Office, San Francisco, USA
Core Team
Dr. Runze He
Dr. Jingwen Shi
Co-founded GDBspace when envisioning its huge potential. Management consultant for pharmaceuticals (clients include Roche, Novartis, Boehringer Ingelheim, etc) and private equity investments. Angel investor in Abionic, Wildbiene. Board member of Space Peptides, where building successful partnerships for the company.
PhD from Karolinska Institute; Visiting scholar at Max-Planck Institute. Business Administration from Notre Dame, USA. Publications in Nature Nanotechnology, ACS, etc.
Dr. Sacha Javor
Computational chemist and expertise in peptide chemistry. Participated in innovation management with SITEM-Insel.
Postdoc at Scripps Institute, USA. PhD from University Bern, Switzerland.
Dr. Kapila Gunasekera
Dr. Kapila Gunasekera has more than 20 years of computational chemistry / biology experience in the pharmaceutical and life science industry, with numerous publications in leading peer-reviewed journals. He has a PhD in Molecular Biology at the University of Bern.
Dr. Clémence Delalande
Dr Clémence Delalande joined the company as a Business Development Representative and Senior scientist. She is primarily a pharmacist and medicinal chemist with further knowledge in computational chemistry, analytical sciences and chemical biology.
Postdoc at UChicago, USA (Group of Prof. Bryan Dickinson). PhD from University of Bern, Switzerland (Group of Prof. Jean-Louis Reymond) & Member of the NCCR TransCure during that time. Completed the D3 (Drug Discovery and Development) Simulation course from Novartis. Pharmaceutical doctorate obtained in Paris in 2015.
Dr. Ivan Di Bonaventura
Amelia Coti
Mengfei Shi
Runquan Li
Jian Guo
Lixiao Wei
Advisory Board
Prof. Jean-Louis Reymond
Worldwide renowned for its research on chemical space.
Professor in chemistry, Bern University. Previously assistant professor at Scripps Research Institute.
Associate member of the Swiss National Center of Competence in Research (NCCR) Chemical Biology. Associate editor of Chem. Comm.
Published 200+ articles in high impact journals, funded by Swiss National Science Foundation, European Horizon2020 etc., 3 spin-off companies.
Prof. Hans-Joachim Böhm
Works on the development of new methods for computer-aided drug design.
Professor of Bioinformatics at the University of Basel. Worked for many years at Roche where he became global head of chemical research. He also worked at Siemens in Munich in the field of microelectronics research and then at BASF in Ludwigshafen in structure-based design of drugs. Prof. Böhm studied chemistry at the University of Karlsruhe where he did both PhD and Post Doc
Member of the Swiss Science Council
Prof. Wenjing Hong
Prof. Hong focus on single-molecule scale electronics and instrumental engineering. He is a Professor of Chemical Engineering in Xiamen University, China. Previously, leader of the molecular electronics research in the group of Prof. Dr. Thomas Wandlowski in University of Bern, Switzerland.
Published 60+ peer-reviewed papers in top journals of chemistry.
Dr. Hongming Chen
After working as a postdoctoral fellow in computational chemistry in Bayer Pharma Research Center in Wuppertal, Germany, Hongming Chen joined AstraZeneca R&D Mölndal, Sweden, in 2001. He has been focusing on QSAR modeling and cheminformatics and has delivered various predictive tools and computational chemistry support to the AstraZeneca Compound Collection Enhancement and Predictive Chemistry initiatives, as well as to numerous early drug discovery projects. He has authored/coauthored 30 scientific papers and three book chapters.
Hongming Chen studied polymer material engineering in Northwestern Polytechnical University, China, and obtained his PhD in computational chemistry in 1998 from the Institute of Chemical Metallurgy, Chinese Academy of Sciences.
Dr. Jingwen Shi
Co-founded GDBspace when envisioning its huge potential. Management consultant for pharmaceuticals (clients include Roche, Novartis, Boehringer Ingelheim, etc) and private equity investments. Angel investor in Abionic, Wildbiene. Board member of Space Peptides, where building successful partnerships for the company.
PhD from Karolinska Institute; Visiting scholar at Max-Planck Institute. Business Administration from Notre Dame, USA. Publications in Nature Nanotechnology, ACS, etc.
Dr. Simon Nebel
Simon Nebel has participated in the financing in a number of life science companies and the M&A transactions for Aravis portfolio companies. Simon has been board member or observer in fourteen companies. Before joining Aravis, he was a group strategist at UBS.
PhD in Biophysics from the Biocentre of the University of Basel and MBA from the London Business School
Bettina Buomberger
Experienced sustainability and compliance expert with many years of experience in the Jacobs Foundation, PwC and the canton of Basel-Landschaft. Bettina's main goal is to fully integrate sustainability and compliance topics into the business strategy. She now works as head of organizational development in the department of education, culture and sports. She believes that every company can be run in a way to have a positive impact on the triple bottom line - people, profit and the planet. Sustainability also offers a lot of business opportunities. Sustainable businesses are in for the long run.
Bettina holds a Master of Arts in Communication of the University of Zurich, a Certificate of Advanced Studies in Corporate Responsibility and Social Management from the University of Applied Sciences Winterthur as well as an Executive Master of Business Administration of the University of Zurich.
Company history
Our history
Technology transfer from Prof. Reymond’s group at Uni Bern, Switzerland
Peptide synthesis process development and mid-scale manufacturing pilot plant (capacity 50kg/yr)
Chemical space theory applied to drug discovery
Case study: Covid-19 peptide fusion inhibitor
Laboratories for in vitro & in vivo tox, PK studies
Opening ceremony of large-scale peptide API manufacture plant (capacity 1100kg/yr)
Market Proof-of Concept established with leading brands in key markets
