The most successful and therapeutically useful drug targets in modern medicine are a superfamily of membrane proteins, the G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs). This is particularly evident within the pain markets where all of today's clinically effective opioid analgesics and a number of anti-inflammatory agents, such as the leukotriene antagonists, act through this class of receptor protein.

In recent years, studies have demonstrated that GPCRs can form paired protein complexes - dimers - with other GPCRs on the cell surface. Two of the same GPCRs can pair up to form a homodimer , or two different GPCRs can pair up to form a heterodimer. Compared to the GPCR monomers, some of these receptor dimers display new, unexpected drug recognition and response properties, which means that there exists a broad, new array of unexplored drug targets within the GPCR superfamily.

DimerScreen™, is designed to specifically and selectively identify molecules interacting with GPCR dimers and thus allows for the discovery of compounds with new pharmacological properties at identified dimeric drug targets.