Healthcare & Pharmaceutical Awards 2021

20 GHP / Healthcare and Pharmaceutical Awards 2021 , Jul21347 Offering a unique blend of the best brains, skills and technologies inmedicines research, Domainex possesses an unrivalled depth and breadth of experience across drug discovery. We speak toDrNatalieWinfield tofindoutmore about the company and its pioneering work. Best Drug Discovery CRO 2021 Domainex is a fully integrated drug discovery CRO based near Cambridge serving pharmaceuticals and biotechnology, plus academic and patient foundations globally. The company offers a range of services including medicinal chemistry (including SBDD and FBDD); computational chemistry; assay development (biochemical, biophysical and cell assays); compound screening (including HTS and fragments); protein production; analytical chemistry; and X-ray crystallography services. In addition, Domainex has established a number of proprietary technology platforms that differentiates it from competitors. For example, Combinatorial Domain Hunting is its patented technology for generating many thousands of variants of target proteins to identify suitable novel constructs which can subsequently be used in assays or for structural biology; LeadBuilder is the novel virtual screening platform which identifies hit compounds for clients’ drug discovery programmes in a rapid and cost-effective manner; FragmentBuilder is an integrated platform for performing fragment- based drug discovery (FBDD); and PoLiPa is a technology which allows membrane proteins to be purified without the need for thermostabilizing mutations or detergents. “Our mission is expressed as ‘enrich your medicines pipeline’ which is ultimately what we aim to achieve on behalf of our clients,” explains Dr Natalie Winfield, Director of Commercial Operations at Domainex. There are numerous small molecule drug discovery service companies throughout the world but there are relatively few that can provide a truly integrated offering and Domainex has built up a strong reputation for technical excellence and innovation, always looking to customise its proposals based on a clients’ specific needs. “Our clients value this tailored input and we believe this differentiates us from other CROs,” Natalie elaborates. “Our scientists have a wealth of experience of working in industry, with on average more than 10 years of drug discovery experience gained at both Domainex and at other leading pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies.” Domainex’s success rate is exemplary, and it has enabled three of its clients’ programmes to reach the clinic and has identified pre-clinical candidates for six additional clients with many other projects reaching late-stage research. It has also supported many clients by progressing their projects to a point where they have been able to obtain further funding. For example, Domainex supported Professor Helen Philippou from the University of Leeds with her Factor XII programme. The project was progressed to such a point that a spin out company, Lunac Therapeutics, was formed and £2.65M funding was raised in the first close of a Series A financing round. Domainex currently continues to support Lunac with integrated drug discovery services (medicinal chemistry and assay biology). As a result of its success, Domainex’s revenues have grown significantly this year (~39% in H1’21 vs. H1’20), following a very strong year of revenue growth in 2020 (~42% compared to 2019). Since the start of 2020, >50 new employees have joined Domainex. Another success, despite everything that the company faced in 2020, was that for the first time in its history it generated more custom from international clients than from those based in the UK. “Currently our team is made up of more than 10 nationalities; indeed more than 30% of our staff have their origins from outside of the UK. Since the start of 2019 we have been extremely proud to have worked with over 40 overseas clients from 13 different countries around the globe, from as far afield as Australia and the West Coast of America.” Having recently been awarded the prestigious accolade of Best Drug Discovery CRO 2021 in the Healthcare and Pharmaceutical Awards, Domainex plans to continue to grow the business and have an ambitious revenue target set for next year. “Linked to this we are expecting to continue to grow our headcount,” Natalie says. “As well as signing up new clients, we will look to forge new alliances with other life science service companies who have complimentary capabilities to Domainex.” Contact: Natalie Winfield Company: Domainex Limited Web Address: www.domainex.co.uk