BioAscent Reports Significant Growth in Discovery Services Business

NEWHOUSE, UK (January 14, 2021) – BioAscent, the leading provider of integrated drug discovery services, has defied the uncertainties of the COVID-19 pandemic and continued its stellar growth throughout 2019-2020. Growth has been driven by its integrated discovery business, which saw revenues rise by 60% this year, and the doubling of its commercial compound management business over the last two years.
 
Working with small biotechs and major pharma alike, the company has seen a significant increase in its venture-backed biotech client base, and has also been winning an increasing number of US customers. To support and expand US growth, Dr Nick Moore was appointed as head of business development in North America earlier in the year. The company also responded quickly to the global pandemic, helping to set up and provide on-site technical expertise in high-throughput screening, assay development and sample logistics, to the Scottish Government’s Lighthouse Lab COVID-19 testing facility in Glasgow.
 
As part of its development strategy, BioAscent has continued to invest in new instrumentation and extend the range of its discovery capabilities. With a team nearing 50, and further appointments scheduled in 2021, the company has added expertise in additional areas of research, and is well-resourced to support the timely delivery of all projects for its expanding customer base.
 
“Yet again we have exceeded our growth plans and ended 2020 on another high despite the uncertainties caused by COVID-19,” said Paul Smith, BioAscent’s CEO. “To report this level of growth in a crowded and well-served market, is testament to the world-leading expertise and dedication of the team. 2021 will see us strengthening our offering in key disciplines such as computational chemistry, continuing to hire the best scientists, and ensuring that they are working with the best tools available. That’s why we invested £1m in new instrumentation and equipment this year and expect to invest at least as much again in 2021, further enhancing the attraction of our premium facility in Newhouse. With these solid foundations in place, we expect 2021 to be another record-breaking year.”
 
For more information, about BioAscent, visit https://www.bioascent.com/
 
BioAscent Discovery Ltd.
Founded in 2013, BioAscent is a leading provider of integrated drug discovery services based at the former Organon / Merck Sharpe and Dohme (MSD) R&D site in Newhouse, Scotland. In 2020, BioAscent was listed as the top-performing Pre-clinical Contract Research Organization in the Pharma Fast 50 report from financial services company, Alantra, which ranks the UK’s fastest-growing, privately-owned pharmaceutical businesses according to revenue growth over the previous two years. Our drug discovery services include de novo assay development, target analysis and bespoke screening strategies, compound screening, medicinal and synthetic chemistry, computational chemistry and data management. Our team of expert scientists has experience of successfully working from assay development through to preclinical and clinical candidates across all biological target classes and major therapeutic indications. As part of its compound management service, BioAscent currently holds and manages over 1 million compounds for our customers, in both liquid and solid formats. Through the Compound Cloud service, the company provides rapid access to an IP-free library of ~125,000 lead like compounds in screening-ready format.  Since 2013, the BioAscent team has been responsible for:
>100 biochemical and biophysical assays for drug discovery projects
>50 hit validation/characterisation projects
>30 hit-to-lead campaigns
>80,000 screening plates delivered to our global customers/partners