History

 

Fundación MEDINA was established in 2008 in the Health Sciences Technological Park in Granada from the former Centro de Investigación Básica of Merck Sharp & Dohme de España (CIBE-MSD) located in Madrid, Spain. Upon its establishment, MEDINA received as donation all the assets and knowhow from the former research center, including all the microbial collections and natural products libraries existing at that time at Merck in Spain.

 

MEDINA’s research team is directly descended from one of the longest operating and most successful Natural Products drug discovery programs in the pharmaceutical industry, and traces its roots back through more than 50 years of experience at Merck Research Laboratories (MRL).

 

MEDINA has collective experience with and unbroken historical ties to successfully marketed drugs (MEFOXIN, PRIMAXIN, MEVACOR and CANCIDAS) and to some of the most important natural products discoveries of recent decades (platensimycin and platencin, moriniafungin,  enfumafungin, parnafungins, lucensimycin, philipimycin, and kibdelomycin among others).

 

Fundación MEDINA has capitalized on its Merck-derived experience, personnel and equipment to position itself as a new Centre of Excellence for research and development in drug discovery. Currently, its permanent scientists have been attracted from the pharmaceutical, biotech and academic sectors, and they operate as part of a multidisciplinary team with skills ranging from molecular and cell biology, industrial and medical microbiology, informatics and automation, compound management and analytical and natural products chemistry.

 

This experience is enriched by the opportunities offered by the Health Sciences Technological Park in Granada to establish collaborations with biotech companies, academic and clinical research groups from the University and the Andalusian Health Institutes, a unique research network that favors the possibilities of translational research into the clinic.

 

MEDINA currently has active research collaborations with international research groups in the academic and the industrial sectors.