Cresset has established a Professional Services division and has named Dr. Martin Slater as its new director of Consulting. Dr. Slater was previously at BioFocus where, as senior research Fellow, he helped develop the SoftFocus library brand with the development of chemogenomic tools and the design of more than 40 commercially successful protein targeted libraries.

“The appointment of Martin reflects the recent strategic expansion of Cresset’s Consulting Services business” said Rob Scoffin, chief executive officer of Cresset. “The pharma and biotech market is constantly evolving and changing, and the products and services we provide need to keep pace with these changes in order to continue to offer scientific insight and business value to our customers. The rapidly increasing demand for our expertise, demonstrated by our recent major collaboration with Redx Pharma, has led us to establish a dedicated Professional Services division. Martin’s unrivaled experience of using our tools on customer projects made him the ideal candidate to help drive this division forward.”

Cresset develops software for calculating and comparing the molecular Field characteristics of chemical compounds.  Field technology uses the surface properties of molecules to evaluate their activities and properties, rather than relying on 2D structure similarity.  Cresset’s Fields provide a structure-independent way of hit-finding, lead switching and lead optimization in drug discovery and other chemistry-based research projects.