Sygnature Discovery, a UK provider of integrated drug discovery resource and expertise has invested, through its parent Sygil Group, in a new start-up company, Peak Proteins. The investment in Peak Proteins is part of an on-going strategy to build and expand the group’s capabilities. The deal, which was signed in December 2015, sees Sygil making a significant financial investment in the BioHub-based business at Alderley Park, Cheshire, UK. This partnership with Peak Proteins adds protein production and crystallography to Sygnature’s current range of drug discovery capabilities.

Peak Proteins was founded by Mark Abbott in 2014 and has been trading since summer 2015. Collectively, the experienced ex-AstraZeneca team provides engineered, tailored protein reagents and 3D atomic level structures of proteins using X-ray crystallography to enable the rational design of new drugs.

“Computational structure-based design is a very important part of modern drug discovery and Peak Proteins’ team of highly experienced scientists offer a rare skill set in protein crystallography, which compliments and supports our existing capabilities,” said Simon Hirst, founder and chief executive officer, Sygnature Discovery. “This is much more than a financial investment as we will be able to share our management expertise with Peak Proteins and support their future growth.”

He continued, “Our involvement means that we can now offer protein production and crystallography alongside our client projects, or separately, and this expands our capabilities further. The two companies will also be able to work together to develop new services and technologies that will be advantageous to our clients.”

“It is great to have the expertise and involvement of Simon and his team at Sygnature Discovery,” said Mark Abbott, founder, Peak Proteins. “There is a lot we can learn from their successes as we grow our business. Working together in this way will give us the necessary cash injection to accelerate our growth as well as making some important capital investments in equipment.”