About Melior Discovery

Discover how Melior’s unique phenotypic screening platforms can uncover the untapped value of your candidate therapeutic

What We Do

Melior Discovery is a world class provider of in vivo pharmacology services. We evaluate candidate therapeutics in animal models of human disease. The company has established and validated over 80 animal models in an array of therapeutic areas such as inflammation, immunology, diabetes & metabolic syndrome, dermatology, cardiovascular, gastrointestinal, psychiatric, neurological and neurodegenerative disorders. Our expertise, skill level, and the quality of the data that we produce is now widely recognized by scientists throughout the global pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical industry.

Why We’re Different

More than just a provider of in vivo pharmacology services, Melior is a pioneer of in vivo phenotypic screening and a leader in the area of drug repositioning. Its proprietary theraTRACE^®platform enables rapid and cost-effective identification of new therapeutic potential by systematically screening candidates in a diverse array of validated in vivo disease models.

Since its founding in 2005, Melior has used this approach to build its own pipeline (Melior Pharmaceuticals) as well as to add value to partners’ compounds. Over these years the company has accumulated a number of illustrative examples for the power of this approach complete with clinical validation of its findings, including several instances of whole new companies that were founded based upon the new therapeutic opportunities discovered in the Melior labs.

Management Team

Andrew Reaume, PhD, MBA

President and CEO,
Co-Founder

Patty Ferrante

Chief Operating Officer

Weina Cong, PhD

Director of Cardiovascular & Metabolic Disease

Gennady N. Smagin, MD, PhD

Director of Pharmacology

John A. Gruner, PhD

Director of Neurophysiology

Amy DiCamillo

Director of Scientific Operations

Xiaodong Li, MD, PhD

Director of Immunology and Inflammation

Alexandra Liddane, PhD

Senior Scientist

Erin Davis

Director of Lab Operations

We chose Melior Discovery because they were responsive and cost effective. We are staying with them as a chosen scientific partner because of their thoughtful scientific input to experimental design and attention to detail. Their expertise and flexibility allowed us to quickly adapt the study design and evaluate additional outcome measures to pursue unexpected activity.
Sridharan Rajamani, Ph.D., Senior Research Scientist
Gilead Sciences
I have been working with Melior on a number of projects over the course of a few years now. They have been a great partner throughout this time. The scientists whom I have worked with have been great problem-solvers and were customer focused
Jay Lichter
Avalon Ventures
[We] have been impressed with [Melior’s] ability to rapidly and effectively evaluate compounds in animal models…as we strive to identify compounds to ameliorate the devastating symptoms of Rett,
Monica Coenraads, Executive Director
Rett Syndrome Research Trust
Melior is more than just a service company. Their experienced staff guided us in our drug development efforts. We consider Melior an extension of our own research team.
Josh Schultz
Carolus Therapeutics
Addex Therapeutics has been collaborating with Melior Discovery for more than a year. The studies performed at Melior are always carefully planned and skilfully executed while the progress of the project is well-tracked and communicated to the customer. On several occasions, when testing our compounds in a new in vivo assay, we relied on Melior's scientists in their guidance and advice. We have been particularly pleased with a series of experiments involving assessment of compounds' profiles in the rat sleep/wake EEG. This approach, that has a translational relevance, offered a sensitive measure of a compound's efficacy and side-effects
Mikhail Kalinichev, Ph.D., Associate Research Director
Addex Therapeutics
Having worked with Melior quite extensively over the past several years, we find the team to be highly knowledgeable, responsive and adaptable to our needs. The overall process has been highly efficient and we are impressed by the quality of their reports
Christopher Prior, Ph.D., CEO,
PhaseBio Pharmaceuticals Inc.
…to evaluate our lead compound in an EEG-based sleep wake model. Melior’s very experienced team provided valuable insights and recommendations on study design, analysis and interpretation of the data. As a virtual company, Prexa relied on Melior to become an extension of our knowledge team and they met all our expectations
Pat Baskin and Ev Graham
Prexa Pharmaceuticals
State of-the-art Preclinical Pharmacology
Melior provided State-of-the-art Preclinical Pharmacology Support for a period of nearly a year where a series of in vivo studies were completed on a weekly basis. The staff was extremely user-friendly and the operational processes were excellent. I can recommend Melior without reservation.
Richard DiMarchi, PhD
Cox Professor of Chemistry & Gil Chair in Biomolecular Sciences Indiana University, Department of Chemistry