Laia Malet Sanz
Director - Medicinal Chemistry OMass Therapeutics
Laia Malet Sanz is currently Director of Medicinal Chemistry at OMass Therapeutics. Originally from Spain, she earned her degree in Chemistry from the University of Barcelona, followed by a Master’s in synthetic organic chemistry from Queen Mary University of London. Laia began her career at Pfizer before moving to Eli Lilly as a medicinal chemist, where she gained over 16 years of experience in large pharma, contributing to a wide range of projects across multiple therapeutic areas. She then joined OMass Therapeutics chemistry team, where she has spent the past five years. She has led OMass’s lead program—now in IND studies—from its earliest stages through to candidate nomination, and she continues to support other programs in the pipeline. Outside of work, Laia enjoys spending time with her family, exploring nature, and playing sports.
Seminars
- What are the main challenges in overcoming GPCR ligand promiscuity, and how can we ensure selectivity when overlapping signalling pathways risk off-target effects and reduced therapeutic precision?
- How can allosteric modulators that bind to alternative receptor sites be leveraged to achieve more refined control of receptor activity and significantly improve specificity?
- In what ways can high-resolution structural data inform the rational design of GPCR ligands, helping to optimise binding interactions and accelerate the development of highly selective therapeutic agents?
- Can we optimise binding kinetics so that ligands have a long residence time in the receptor to achieve higher efficacy?
