A Perspective on Covalent Hit Identification and Validation in the European Pharmaceutical Industry

This article is an initiative of the Chemical Biology in Industry Working Group of the "European Federation for Medicinal Chemistry and Chemical Biology (EFMC)" connecting discipline experts from several organizations across Europe. In the second half of 2025, we surveyed scientists from the listed organizations to collect precompetitive information on covalent hit identification and validation practices in the pharmaceutical industry. The questionnaire contained 33 questions and covered a broad spectrum of important aspects in covalent drug discovery, including target selection, library characteristics, hit identification, hit validation, and technical limitations. The results are shared and discussed in this article with the goal of generating best practices and providing insights into library design, hit identification, validation, and optimization in covalent drug discovery.