Drug research company announces major expansion at science park

Drug research firm Sygnature Discovery has announced major expansion plans which will include a new facility at Alderley Park.

The expansion will result in the doubling of Sygnature’s drug metabolism and pharmacokinetics (DMPK) department.

The firm is also planning a sustained recruitment programme.

The expanded DMPK department, which focuses on the delivery and interpretation of discovery DMPK data to pharmaceutical and biotechnology will be located across Sygnature’s Nottingham and Alderley Park sites.

Private equity-backed, the company currently operates a fully-enabled research facility in Nottingham housing 237 staff

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.

Since then, Tim has greatly expanded the department, recruiting specialist scientists, and added additional capabilities, most recently discovery toxicology.

Sygnature’s DMPK scientists are highly-experienced with half of the department having over ten years’ experience in the field.

This new exciting phase of growth for Sygnature will see the DMPK department doubling in size over the next 18 months.