Hit and Lead Profiling: Identification and Optimization of Drug-like Molecules

Laszlo Urban is global head of Preclinical Safety Profiling at the Novartis Institutes for Biomedical Research (NIBR), Cambridge, MA, and previously was the Deputy Head of the Novartis Institute for Medical Sciences in London, UK.
He received his MD and PhD in neurophysiology/neuropharmacology in Hungary, and was visiting professor at Duke University between 1987-1989. He joined the Sandoz Institute for Medical Research, London, in 1990, where he was head of pharmacology. Dr. Urban has published over 130 scientific articles, book chapters and patents and has served on the editorial board of several journals, while also serving as President of the European Neuropeptide Club, between 1999 and 2001.


Bernard Faller is currently director in the Metabolism and Pharmacokinetics department at NIBR, Basel, Switzerland. He graduated as a biochemist from the University of Strasbourg, France, where he obtained his PhD in 1991. He then started at Ciba-Geigy as a post-doctoral fellow, becoming head of laboratory in 1995. In 1999 he moved to central technologies and established the foundations of the Novartis biopharmaceutical profiling group that addresses early ADME properties in drug discovery, and two years later became technology program head for physicochemical profiling in the Preclinical Compound Profiling Unit. In 2007 Dr. Faller was named "Hero of Chemistry" by the ACS for the discovery of Exjade, the first orally-active iron chelator for the treatment of transfusional iron overload.