The Drug Discovery Pipeline (DDP) was established in 2009 at the Guangzhou Institutes of Biomedicine and Health (GIBH). The mission of the DDP is to capture the best ideas cultivated within GIBH and to translate those ideas into drug discovery projects. Prior to the creation of the DDP, there was no mechanism in place to transform basic concepts into viable discovery programs. However, after its formation, GIBH now has the required expertise, core technologies, structure and integration of disciplines to enable effective drug discovery research. This model is unique to GIBH and not found at other institutes within Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Since its inception the DDP has achieved seven important milestones, which include: (1) Formation and integration of project teams to enable the advancement of drugs; (2) Centralization of core technology groups to support drug development; (3) Development of a sustainable pipeline of projects with novel intellectual property (IP); (4) Establishment of key international partnership for the co-development of drugs; (5) Recruitment of international experts with discovery experience to enable effective drug discovery science at GIBH; (6) Provision of technical services and internal expertise to local universities and companies in Southern China and (7) Licensing of intellectual property and drugsmatured in the DDP to pharmaceutical companies in Guangzhou for advanced clinical development. An 8th milestone, which includes advancing a new drug candidate into clinical trials, is expected to be achieved in 2014/15.