Growth Sparks Key Appointments

Two key senior appointments and the addition of six experienced scientists kicked off the year for Sygnature Discovery.

Dr Stephen Young stepped in as Vice-President, Business Development, joining from Chinese CRO start-up, Hitgen where he was VP of Business Development and responsible for establishing several early research collaborations. He has held business development positions at Pharmacia, Novabiochem and Protherics, is a highly experienced Medicinal Chemist and has worked in a broad range of therapeutic areas for organisations including MSD, Proteus, Tularik, Amgen and most recently,Vertex, where he led the Discovery Chemistry department in the UK.

Stephen has a BSc (Hons) in Chemistry and a PhD in Medicinal Chemistry from the University of Nottingham, and undertook post-doctoral research at the University of Edinburgh in the area of peptide synthesis methodology.

Dr Stuart Thomson also joined the company as Associate Director of Bioscience. He brings over 12 years’ experience in drug discovery and translational research, primarily in the oncology field. Formerly with biotech Coferon, which focused on developing novel dimeric inhibitors of protein:protein interactions, Stuart worked at OSI Pharmaceuticals in translational research studies focused on the EGFR inhibitor Tarceva™, encompassing the identification of predictive biomarkers and mechanisms of drug resistance. Stuart has a BSc (Hons) from the University of Edinburgh and a PhD from the University of Leicester. His post-doctoral studies focused on signal transduction pathways and chromatin biology at Kings College and the University of Oxford.

Dr Simon Hirst commented, “We are delighted to welcome both Stephen and Stuart. Stephen will be focusing on business development in Europe and West Coast USA, working in Paul Clewlow’s team. Stuart joins our ever-expanding bioscience department which we set up in 2011 and will work closely with Dr John Unitt.”

Sygnature Discovery is poised to move into the new, £30m BioCity building set to open in 2017.