According to Sygnature, this acquisition create a ‘significant competitive advantage’ for the biotech firm as it expands its global footprint and business operations with discovery expertise in the North American market.
Together the companies will provide drug discovery expertise to support customer programmes from target validation through to candidate selection, combining North American and UK operations.
NuChem Sciences employs over 300 staff in Montreal and Quebec City, Canada, where the company will continue to operate and drive further market expansion across North America.
NuChem Sciences provides discovery services across medicinal, synthetic, scale-up, process and computational chemistry, as well as DMPK, in vitro biology and in vivo pharmacology. It also provides protein chemistry services and offers knowledge-based expertise in structural biology at the initial stages of drug discovery to global biotech and pharmaceutical companies.
Dr Simon Hirst, CEO at Sygnature Discovery, said: “This acquisition represents a pivotal milestone in the Sygnature growth plan, allowing us to deliver better discovery solutions to customers around the world.
“The addition of NuChem Sciences greatly enhances Sygnature Discovery’s offering, making us a highly differentiated and integrated drug discovery partner with 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.”
Marc Lebel, president and chairman at NuChem Sciences, added: “Our company goals and values fit perfectly with those of Sygnature in becoming a global leader in drug discovery services. We are delighted to become an integral part of the Sygnature Group, allowing us to leverage our deep scientific expertise and presence across North America and Europe, to the benefit of customers and employees.”
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 Summer 2021. Previous acquisitions made were Peak Proteins in April 2022 and SB Drug Discovery in January 2023.
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.