CytRx, a Los Angeles-Calif.-based biopharmaceutical R&D company specializing in oncology, has commenced operations at its new discovery laboratory in Freiburg, Germany. The new laboratory will conduct discovery and translational research to create drug candidates that utilize novel linker technologies that couple chemotherapeutic agents and proteins either inside the body or externally, and then concentrate drug in tumors.

Led by Felix Kratz, Ph.D., vice president of drug discovery and inventor of aldoxorubicin, and Andre Warnecke, Ph.D., senior director of drug discovery, the discovery team will work to expand CytRx's novel albumin-binding anti-cancer drug pipeline.

Steven A. Kriegsman, CytRx president and CEO, said, "Adding innovative product candidates to our future oncology pipeline is an important goal for CytRx and the work being done at our Freiburg lab is expected to yield a first clinical candidate by the second half of 2015. Bringing these R&D capabilities in-house allows us to control our pipeline and rapidly move novel product candidates from bench to bedside."