"These six presentations represent our continued success in addressing the elusive mGluR targets and re-affirm our leadership position in addressing important previously undruggable targets with oral small molecule allosteric modulators," said Bharatt Chowrira, CEO of Addex.

Most drugs work by blocking the action of a protein in the body. But some proteins, by dint of their location or structure, cannot easily be inhibited and are said to be ''undruggable.''

The Human Genome Project has ensured that an unprecedented number of potential molecular targets are now in the public domain, but scientists do not yet know very much about them. Nor do they yet have technologies that are capable of coping with this target-rich environment, a fact that is likely to result in a massive increase in the number of ‘undruggable’ targets.