Overview

BlackSwan Pharma GmbH was founded in the beginning of 2009. The company is continuing research and development reaching back into 2003, when the then IBFB Pharma GmbH (later: Curacyte Discovery GmbH) started to design and synthesise, optimise and profile inhibitors of phosphodiesterase (PDE).

After Curacyte Discovery GmbH was taken over by the U.S. pharmaceutical company The Medicines Company, the Leipzig subsidiary underwent a re-orientation. In order to continue the valuable work done for the profiling of active substances, in particular for the treatment of CLL, The Medicines Company (Leipzig) GmbH have granted Dr. Wolfgang Tiedke, the former Founding Director and Managing Director for many years, an exclusive and worldwide license for the development and marketing of their patent-protected substance library.

With BlackSwan in the company name, the case is as follows: Since black swans were unknown, people believed that all swans were white. Karl Popper pointed out the limits of this inductive process on the basis of this example in "The Logic of Scientific Discovery". Since then, BlackSwan has been a simile for something unexpected, or for something that had been considered absolutely impossible. A metaphor which has repeatedly proven to be right in the development of active substances.