Amakem was founded by Dirk Leysen and Olivier Defert, both former Devgen employees where they started the development of unique kinase inhibitors designed to be locally active only. Jack Elands joined the founders shortly afterwards.

The Amakem team has many years of experience in medicinal chemistry and drug development in mid size and small biopharmaceutical companies. In addition, Amakem engages other drug development executives to help in the management of outsourcing its drug development functions with focus on quality and speed in a capital efficient manner.

The mission of Amakem is to obtain a leading position in the discovery and development of safe and effective kinase inhibitors with localized activity and to create substantial value via an internal proprietary pipeline of drug candidates. Initially Amakem will focus on a unique kinase inhibitor concept for the treatment of major chronic diseases such as glaucoma, allergic asthma and COPD.