Sygnature Discovery has started 2016 by making two key senior appointments and adding a further six experienced scientists.
The firm has hired Dr Stephen Young as Vice-President, Business Development, who joins the Nottingham, UK-based company from Chinese CRO start-up, Hitgen where he was VP of Business Development and responsible for establishing several early research collaborations.
Prior to this, Young held business development positions at Pharmacia, Novabiochem and Protherics. He is an experienced medicinal chemist and has worked in a range of therapeutic areas within small and large discovery organisations including MSD, Proteus, Tularik, Amgen and, most recently, Vertex, where he led the Discovery Chemistry department in the UK.
Dr Stuart Thomson also joined Sygnature Discovery at the beginning of the year as Associate Director of Bioscience. He has more than 12 years’ experience in drug discovery and translational research, primarily in the oncology field.
Thomson came to Sygnature after two years with Coferon, a New York based biotech company focused on developing novel dimeric inhibitors of protein:protein interactions. Prior to that, he worked at OSI Pharmaceuticals in New York for 10 years where he was involved in translational research studies focused on the EGFR inhibitor Tarceva, encompassing the identification of predictive biomarkers and mechanisms of drug resistance.
Young will be focusing on business development in Europe and West Coast USA.
Thomson has joined the firm's ever-expanding bioscience department, which was set up in 2011.
The firm has also added a further six experienced scientists in response to the continued growth of the business.
Next year, Sygnature Discovery will move into the new, state-of-the-art, £30m BioCity building, which is set to open in Nottingham in 2017.
