CANADA – UK-based integrated drug discovery contract research organization (CRO), Sygnature Discovery, has expanded to North America with the acquisition of NuChem Sciences.
This acquisition cements Sygnature as one of the world’s largest players in integrated drug discovery phase solutions and advances its vision to become the global market leader.
The transaction creates a significant competitive advantage for Sygnature as it expands its global footprint and business operations to leverage discovery expertise in the North American market.
Together, Sygnature Discovery and NuChem are creating a global force that delivers drug discovery expertise to support customer programmes from target validation through to candidate selection, combining the best of North American and UK operations.
The acquisition was supported by Amorchem, Investissement Québec, Fonds de solidarité FTQ and the Business Development Bank of Canada.
Marc Lebel, Pharm. D., President and Chairman at NuChem Sciences said, “Our company goals and values fit perfectly with those of Sygnature in becoming a global leader in drug discovery services.”
Lebel also expressed NuChem’s enthusiasm to become an integral part of the Sygnature Group, allowing the organisation to leverage its deep scientific expertise and presence across North America and Europe, to the benefit of its customers and employees.
NuChem Sciences, a leading discovery CRO in the North American market, employs over 300 staff across centres of excellence in Montreal and Quebec City, Canada, where the company will continue to operate and drive further market expansion across North America.
Founded in 2011, NuChem Sciences has delivered expertise in integrated and standalone discovery solutions across medicinal, synthetic, scale-up, process and computational chemistry, as well as DMPK, in vitro biology and in vivo pharmacology.
Additionally, the company provides protein chemistry services and offers crucial knowledge-based expertise in structural biology at the initial stages of drug discovery to global biotech and pharmaceutical companies.
Following this acquisition, Sygnature Discovery will have more than 1,000 staff across 53 nationalities, including over 900 scientists who work on standalone and integrated drug discovery programmes for pharma, biotech, VCs, and NFPs.
The Bristol-based CRO was founded in 2004 and has successfully delivered over 40 novel drug candidates into pre-clinical development and 22 into clinical trials, with its scientists named on over 170 patent applications.
Dr. Simon Hirst, CEO at Sygnature Discovery, commented, “This acquisition represents a pivotal milestone in the Sygnature growth plan, allowing us to deliver better discovery solutions to customers around the world.”
Dr. Hirst also stated that the addition of NuChem Sciences greatly enhanced Sygnature Discovery’s offering, making NuChema a highly differentiated and integrated drug discovery partner with an unrivalled scale and range.
“NuChem is a like-minded business that complements Sygnature’s existing services, towards our joint mission of improving the world’s health, ” Dr Hirst offered.
This is the third in a series of acquisitions over the last sixteen months that have formed part of Sygnature’s global expansion, following the investment by Five Arrows in the Summer of 2021.
Previous acquisitions made were Peak Proteins in April 2022 and SB Drug Discovery in January 2023.
Sygnature and Nuchem are contract research organizations (CROs), and they provide support to the pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and medical device industries in the form of research services outsourced on a contract basis.
Moreover, they also provide such services as biopharmaceutical development, biological assay development, commercialization, clinical development, clinical trials management, pharmacovigilance, outcomes research, and Real-world evidence.
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