Strasbourg, France, May 22, 2026 – Novalix is thrilled to announce that Pr. Dr. Stefan A. Laufer, Chairman for Pharmaceutical Chemistry at Eberhard-Karls-University Tübingen, and founder of TüCAD2 (Tübingen Center for Academic Drug Discovery & Development), has received the Novalix-SCT Award for Drug Discovery Chemistry 2026.
Aiming to acknowledge excellence in drug discovery chemistry, this annual award is attributed for outstanding results contributing to a scientific discovery and /or substantial therapeutic innovation and obtained by scientists without restrictions regarding nationality.
Prof. Laufer exemplifies the multidisciplinary excellence central to the Novalix-SCT Prize with 725 publications (21,070 citations, h-index 75), 54 patent families, having supervised 140 completed PhDs, and research spanning medicinal chemistry, molecular modeling, MD-assisted virtual screening on supercomputers, chemical biology, and ADMET.
His most remarkable achievement is translating academic research into five clinical compounds — including Skepinone-L (selective p38α inhibitor, Phase Ib/IIa for HCC), HRX-215 (first-in-class MKK4 inhibitor enhancing liver regeneration, Cell 2024 front cover), LN-2015 (ultralong target residence time p38α inhibitor for colorectal cancer, Nature Cancer 2025), CBS-3595 (dual p38α/PDE4 inhibitor, Phase I), and Licofelone (dual COX/5-LOX inhibitor, Phase III).
Prof. Laufer stands as a pioneering figure in academic drug discovery, demonstrating how rigorous interdisciplinary chemistry can deliver genuine therapeutic innovations with global patient impact.
Congratulations to him! We are looking forward to his plenary lecture at the next RICT meeting in July.