At Vipergen, off-DNA hit compounds can ship in as few as 20 business days when a biotinylated target protein is available, or in 30 business days when screening runs directly in cells via our cellular Binder Trap Enrichment (cBTE) platform where no protein purification is required at all.
That’s the real promise behind fast DEL screening: not just how quickly a library can be screened, but how quickly a physical, resynthesized compound can be in hand and on the bench, whichever starting point you begin from. For tractable, “easy” targets such as enzymes, and other proteins with well-behaved binding sites that answer is measured in business days, not fiscal quarters.
Why does speed matter in early-stage discovery?
DEL screening itself has rarely been the bottleneck. A single selection can interrogate hundreds of millions of compounds against a target in a matter of days. The real bottleneck sits on either side of the screen: upstream, in preparing a target protein, and downstream, in turning DNA-tagged hits into purified, off-DNA compounds a biology team can assay. At many DEL providers, both protein prep and resynthesis can take weeks or months on their own, which means the speed advantage of the screen evaporates before it ever reaches the bench, and the program stalls exactly at the validation step where momentum matters most.
Vipergen built its fast-track services to keep the entire process efficient, not just the selection step. Selection and analysis run on a streamlined platform built for speed, and resynthesis can start the moment a hit list is confirmed as the library is designed from thousands of building blocks kept in stock. The result: the first off-DNA resynthesized hit compounds — not just a hit list — can be in your hands within weeks ready for Your validation.
When is fast DEL screening the right call?
The target itself calls for speed
- A tractable, well-behaved target. Enzymes and other proteins with well-defined binding sites are the perfect targets for a fast DEL-screening campaign. There’s no reason to accept a slower turnaround when biology isn’t an obstacle.
- Portfolio triage across candidate targets. Running several targets through a fast track in parallel produce comparable hit-rate data quickly, so deeper program investment goes where it’s warranted.
- A new structural or biological insight just published. A freshly resolved binding pocket or mechanism is identified. Testing it with a real DEL screen early beats waiting months to act on it.
- A new candidate target just emerged from genomics or multi-omics work. A fast tractable signal shows whether it’s worth competing for resources against already-established programs, before committing further.
The competitive landscape demands it
- Competitors are already working with the same target. A structurally distinct chemotype is what preserves freedom-to-operate. Vipergen’s DELs combinatorial diversity is well suited to finding new chemotypes fast, rather than another analog of what’s already published.
- You’re entering a target space second. A fast-follow strategy only works if the chemical matter is genuinely differentiated; speed keeps that from costing extra time on top of being second.
- A lead series just hit an unexpected liability. Toxicology, selectivity, or metabolic problems can stall a program overnight. A fast replacement scaffold – sometimes drawn from a backup DEL run in parallel with the main program – can keep it moving instead of restarting from zero.
The business clock is running
- Fundraising is on the calendar. Tractability data or early hits give a seed or Series A/B pitch something concrete to point to.
- Runway is tight. A decision-ready answer in weeks costs far less, in both time and budget, than a long campaign. Furthermore, it tells you sooner than later whether to keep going.
- There is no in-house chemistry team for resynthesis. Small biotechs and academic labs often have the target biology covered but not the medicinal chemistry capacity. Vipergen’s in-house resynthesis fills that gap without adding time.
Whichever of these fits, Vipergen’s fast-track services below are built to answer it in weeks rather than quarters.
What are the fast-track screening options?
| Service | Best for | You provide | Turnaround | Output |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| DEL – Express | Tractable target, purified protein in hand | Biotinylated protein (µg amounts) | 20 business days | Hit list, structures and purified hit compounds shipped |
| DELs in Cells – Express | Tractable target, no purified protein | Amino acid sequence of target | 30 business days | Hit list, structures and purified hit compounds shipped |
| DEL – Snap | Fast, budget-conscious early lead | Biotinylated protein (µg amounts) | 4 weeks | Report + structure for top 25 hits. Optional help with hit-resynthesis |
| DELs in Cells – Snap | Fast, budget-conscious early lead | Amino acid sequence of target | 4 + 4 weeks Fast track |
Report + structures for top 25 hits. Optional help with hit-resynthesis |
Not sure which fits? Get in touch now for a chat.
How does Vipergen keep the whole process efficient?
Speed is built into all stages of the process: How the DEL is designed, how the target is screened, how the screen is run and analyzed, and how hits become physical compounds.
1. Direct screening in cells removes protein purification
2. Screening and analysis run lean in vitro
Once a target is ready, selection itself is fast by design. Binder Trap Enrichment keeps every selection in solution, in a homogeneous emulsion format and there’s no plate coating, no target immobilization, and no surface-washing steps to slow things down. Enrichment data flow straight into an informatics pipeline built to turn raw sequencing counts into a ranked, structure-annotated hit list without weeks of manual analysis in between.
3. Hit resynthesis is fast, too
A hit list isn’t a usable result until it’s a physical compound. Vipergen’s DELs are pre-optimized around chemistries already known to translate cleanly from DNA-tagged hit to purified molecule, and because nearly all building blocks are sourced in-house and a dedicated synthesis team resynthesizes hits full time, that step starts the day a hit list is confirmed and not weeks later, waiting on a third-party supplier or a queued chemistry slot.
Does faster mean lower-quality hits?
No — speed here comes from optimizing the workflow, not from cutting corners on library quality. Vipergen’s DELs are built on the YoctoReactor platform, where the library is purified after every chemical step to guarantee 100% correspondence between a compound’s DNA barcode and the molecule attached to it, with no truncated or mismatched products. That fidelity is what keeps false-positive rates low even when a screening is run rapidly -a fast-track project and a standard project draw from the same high-fidelity libraries and the same selection technology. Only the turnaround commitment and delivery format differ.
Which fast DEL screening service is right for me?
- Already have purified, biotinylated protein? Start with DEL – Express for hits in as low as 20 business days.
- Only have a target sequence, no purified protein? DELs in Cells – Express screens directly in cells via cBTE and delivers hits in 30 business days.
- Want a lean, budget-conscious early read before committing further? DELs in Cells – Snap or DEL – Snap is built for that.
See the full list of services here.
Fast on difficult targets, too
Yes. The engine behind these fast-track services isn’t limited to easy, tractable targets. Because in-cell screening never requires purified protein and Binder Trap Enrichment never requires target immobilization, the same fast platform has also delivered hits on transcription factors, protein complexes, and protein-protein interactions — target classes traditionally considered slow or intractable for DEL. Fast and difficult aren’t a trade-off at Vipergen; they’re the same underlying technology applied across a wider spectrum of targets.
Explore our services for challenging targets — including molecular glues, PPI inhibitors, and transcription factors.