Sygnature Chemical Services, a leading provider of medicinal and computational chemistry services to the global pharmaceutical industry, and Cyprotex Discovery, a world-renowned pre-clinical discovery and development CRO with a core focus on ADME / PK, today announced that they have entered into a strategic alliance. Under the terms of the agreement, Sygnature and Cyprotex will collaborate to provide a fully-integrated discovery chemistry / DMPK service to accelerate their clients’ drug discovery projects into development.

Dr Anthony Baxter, chief executive offer at Cyprotex, said: “We are pleased to have formed a strategic alliance with Sygnature. Over the past five years they have established a reputation for high-quality medicinal chemistry, and for the intellectual input they contribute into projects. Cyprotex is known as a centre of excellence for ADME / PK services and we are the first choice CRO for many biotech and big pharma companies. Sygnature is a centre of excellence for medicinal chemistry and has an impressive track record. By working closely together with our customers, who will be experts in their particular therapeutic project field, we are confident that we can accelerate projects forward more effectively than CROs that offer a one-stop-shop approach. My colleagues and I are looking forward to working with the Sygnature team to offer an outstanding fully-integrated discovery chemistry / ADME / DMPK service.”

Commenting on the partnership, Dr Simon Hirst, Sygnature’s CEO, said: “Cyprotex has an enviable reputation as a CRO which provides premium ADME / PK services, so I am delighted that we will be working together to offer clients an exceptional, integrated discovery chemistry / DMPK service. At Sygnature we strongly believe that modern drug discovery requires the marriage of medicinal chemistry, ADME and biology. Our medicinal chemists are experienced in using ADME data to drive programmes forward and into proof-of-concept in vivo studies. For the past 18 months Sygnature and Cyprotex have been collaborating on a drug discovery programme for a customer. Hence, scientists from both organisations already know each other well and have established project management systems in place. I am confident that other customers will see the advantages of a medicinal chemistry-driven service which takes advantage of a faster turnaround of ADME / DMPK data to help determine the discovery chemistry strategy of the project.”