The Helmholtz Drug Discovery conference HDDC 2018 was held on April 26-27, 2018 at the Helmholtz Zentrum in Munich, Germany. The meeting covered a wide range of topics. Keynote lectures were presented by 17 internationally renowned speakers from Europe and the US, and an additional 11 talks were selected from 70 submitted abstracts. With over 220 participants, there was overwhelming response and interest by researchers from both academia and industry.