Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) supports Pharmaceutical Development from discovery and beyond. Below you will find frequently asked questions about our comprehensive services, expertise and capabilities.
1. How does SwRI support pharmaceutical development?
SwRI offers contract research and development services ranging from advanced modeling, characterization and scale-up for all stages of in-life testing to include human clinical trials. With more than 2.4 million square feet of laboratory space and multidisciplinary expertise, SwRI supports clients with the validation of ideas, formulations and scale-up for clinical trials. Established companies and startup companies, alike, benefit from SwRI’s extensive laboratory space, CGMP clean rooms, expertise and services to aid drug discovery, design and development and controlled release.
- Lab-scale → Pilot-scale
- CGMP Manufacturing
- Purification & Formulation
- Salt Screening
- Rhodium™ Docking Platform
- Hight Throughput Virtual Screening
- Lead Development
- Software as a Service (SaaS)
- SwRI offers SaaS from our molecular docking software Rhodium™ to accelerate drug discovery and design to our high-throughput screening tool Highlight™, used for non-targeted and untargeted analysis. SwRI also developed a single-use bioreactor for rapid cell expansion for cell-derived biologics manufacturing.
2. Is SwRI a CMO, CRO or CDMO?
Southwest Research Institute’s Chemical & Chemical Engineering Division provides drug discovery and development R&D as a contract research organization (CRO) and contract manufacturing organization (CMO). We specialize in fully integrated solutions across the drug development cycle. We can support specific projects for small- or large-molecule applications at any stage of development. SwRI provides many of the services of a contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO) such as synthesis, formulation, scale-up, process optimization, and GMP clinical supply, and we work closely with clients and other CDMOs to find the right solution for fully integrated projects.
Identify & Explore
- Drug Discovery Research
- Structure-Based Drug Design
- Analytical Pharmaceutical Services
- Biochemistry and Bioengineering
Analyze & Formulate
- Biologics Manufacturing Services
- Microencapsulation
- Pharmaceutical Formulation Development
- Chemical Analysis Services
Supply & Scale
- Clinical Trial Supply Services
- Pharmaceutical Process Development
- Chemical Process Development
- Capsule Formulation Development
- CGMP Manufacturing
3. Can SwRI provide guidance for compliance with regulatory requirements?
SwRI’s expertise navigating the nuances of regulatory compliance, as well as our experience offering a tailored approach to R&D, allows us to meet the needs of our clients. SwRI offers support with characterization and validation of active pharmaceutical ingredients (API), and supports scale-up for clinical trials, including for small to mid-size batch projects. Construction of a new facility, slated for completion in the fall of 2026, will nearly double SwRI’s capacity, providing advanced facilities for supporting clinical trials.
4. What is SwRI's IP policy?
Intellectual property (IP) arising from contract work that is performed at the Institute on behalf of the client may be assigned or licensed to the client depending on the terms of the contract and nature of the IP (e.g. in government contracts, the government retains some rights to certain forms of IP). If SwRI is the owner of the IP, SwRI can grant royalty-free field of use rights in certain contracts, depending on the needs of the client. SwRI also negotiates client-favorable licensing terms for background IP that SwRI may own. For Rhodium drug discovery, SwRI’s current model is Software as a Service (SaaS) with client-favorable terms for the generated potential IP (docking, hit list and data product).
5. What is SwRI’s pharmaceutical and bioengineering expertise?
SwRI’s Pharmaceutical and Bioengineering Department holds numerous patents and have developed assays, microencapsulation techniques and software to support our clients. SwRI collaborates with numerous government and industry clients to develop new pharmaceuticals, biomedical devices and more. SwRI’s work in micro- and nanoencapsulation applies to pharmaceuticals, nutraceuticals, cosmetics, consumer products, agricultural products, paints and coatings and industrial applications.
- Process Development & Manufacturing
- Formulation & Delivery
- Drug Discovery & Development
- Tissue Engineering & Bioreactor Innovation
6. What are the advantages of contracting with SwRI?
- Supply Chain and Manufacturing Support
- With established vendors and clients, SwRI can offer support and resources to ensure working supply chains.
- Right-size validation
- As a nonprofit, SwRI can offer support with small and mid-size batches to support our clients from lab-scale to pilot-scale to scale-up for clinical trials. We work with our clients to tailor our services to meet their needs.
- Robust Internal Research
- SwRI invests millions each year in our internal research and development program. This allows us to develop technologies to support our government and industry clients.
- Multidisciplinary R&D
- SwRI supports research from Deep Sea to Deep Space®. While our expert scientists and engineers all work in vastly different disciplines, they often find unique ways to collaborate, such as computer scientists in 2025 working with chemists to train GAMES, an LLM chatbot, to support drug discovery.
Have a question that’s not here? Contact Darrel Johnston at +1 210 522 2160.