Nottingham drug discovery firm to expand into Cheshire

Sygnature Discovery, the Nottingham drug discovery firm, is set to expand with a new facility at Alderley Park in Cheshire.

The expansion will result in the doubling of Sygnature’s drug metabolism and pharmacokinetics (DMPK) department will be co-located across Sygnature’s Nottingham and Alderley Park sites.

Chief operating officer, Dr Jonathan Williams said: “The demand for our DMPK services and expertise is growing rapidly year on year, so we are expanding the team and bringing in more expertise to meet this growing client need. Following our move into the Discovery Building at BioCity Nottingham in 2017, we have the space to continue to grow the company, but we appreciate that skilled scientists can also be found in other locations. The North West has a wealth of expertise in the field of DMPK and as Alderley Park is home to the UK’s largest life science campus we wanted to align our growth with theirs.

“To effectively manage our DMPK department across two sites and to retain Sygnature Discovery’s unique culture and values, which have been instrumental to our success, some of the Nottingham-based DMPK team will be relocating to Alderley Park.

“As a business we have seen significant growth outside of the UK in recent years and we are now focusing heavily on the further expansion of our global client base. Clients come to Sygnature because we are able to offer not only a high quality fully-integrated drug discovery service, but we also have the flexibility to provide DMPK, medicinal chemistry and in vitro biology as stand-alone services.”

Sygnature Discovery launched its DMPK department in January 2015 with the appointment of Dr Tim Schulz-Utermoehl as Director, who joined from Shire Pharmaceuticals.

This expansion will see the DMPK department doubling in size over the next 18 months.