Sygnature scientists are named inventors on over 50 drug patents

Dr. Paul Clewlow, Sygnature Discovery, talks to EPM about the company’s successful track record in discovering medicines for the benefit of “patients with debilitating diseases such as cancer”

Sygnature Discovery is the UK’s largest independent provider of integrated drug discovery expertise, offering advanced scientific research into medicinal drug discovery programmes for clients ranging from academic departments to pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies worldwide.

The company’s in-house capabilities include medicinal chemistry, bioscience, computational chemistry and DMPK (the internal effects of medicines).

Sygnature’s medicinal research is early stage, small molecule drug discovery and it often takes a further 10 years before a medicine reaches patients in the form of a new medicine.

The company provides scientific expertise in terms of identifying a molecule that selectively binds to a biological target in a diseased cell. This is a notoriously complex area of research and demands that continual innovative methods are applied to enhance project success.

Sygnature has focussed on the overseas market and, as a result, international sales have increased by 58 per cent in the last two years. This was recently recognised when the company was ranked in the top 100 private small- to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the UK by The Sunday Times BT Business SME Track 100 awards.

Through significant technological and financial investment, additional capabilities have been continuously added to the already established medicinal chemistry department at Sygnature. These include biochemical testing and computational chemistry.

Most recently, in January 2015, a DMPK & Physical Sciences department was established to provide support for fully integrated client projects in the hit-to-lead and lead optimisation phases and in support of other chemistry and biology only projects.

With medicinal and computational chemistry, in vitro biology/screening and DMPK now all housed within Sygnature, we are able to design and synthesise novel compounds, test them in sophisticated biological assay formats and analyse the complex data more quickly and efficiently to accelerate potential drug candidates towards the clinic.

Sygnature Discovery’s mission is to accelerate new medicines into development to treat patients with debilitating diseases such as cancer, respiratory disease and Alzheimer’s.

To date, Sygnature scientists are named inventors on over 50 patents, with further patent applications pending. This record of success demonstrates that our scientists are experts in their field of research, with the ability to enhance the value of research projects and accelerate treatments into the clinic.

So far, the company has identified 11 compounds on behalf of clients, which have progressed into development. Five are in human clinical trials, with the most advanced being in Phase 2, meaning it is being given to a relatively large group of patients, typically 100–300. This last compound has the potential to treat chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), which is an extremely serious respiratory disease and a $billion market. There are a further 15 compounds in pre-clinical development, which could enter the clinic within the next 6–12 months.

Sygnature has a clear, long-term vision and intends to widen its service capabilities further, giving the company an even stronger competitive edge in the field of scientific research. Headcount is projected to increase to over 200 within the next three years as part of this expansion plan, and a new purpose-built facility to house a suite of new laboratories and offices is currently under construction.