Pioneer Group is pleased to highlight the continued growth of the innovation ecosystem at BioCity Nottingham. CatSci Ltd, an innovation partner for medicines development, has unveiled its new Bioscience service, further strengthening the site’s reputation as a hub for cutting-edge drug discovery.
CatSci’s latest investment builds on its established chemistry expertise by adding significant bioscience capabilities, all housed within the company’s purpose-designed lab space at BioCity Nottingham. This expansion enables CatSci to provide integrated, decision-ready data for biotech and pharmaceutical partners around the world.
Kathy Dodgson, Technical Director of Bioscience, says: “Great compounds often fail to deliver early promise – not because the idea is wrong, but because the complex biology is not fully understood in time. The right assays, and the right people, make all the difference.”
Designed for Agility
CatSci’s Bioscience platform has been developed to support customers across the full early discovery pipeline:
- Target discovery & validation – Proof of Concept (PoC) and Mode of Action (MoA) studies to validate hypotheses and ensure a target is “druggable” through modulation
- Hit finding – Fragment and small molecule screening with orthogonal confirmation to identify promising hit series for development into lead compounds
- Hit-to-lead – Structure-activity-relationship (SAR) elucidation, cytotoxicity testing and functional profiling t
- Lead optimisation – Examinations of a smaller number of lead compounds across more complex assay systems to optimise properties such as efficacy, selectivity, solubility and toxicity
Projects can range from one-off bespoke assays to fully managed hit-to-lead programmes, all run under SOP-driven workflows with secure data governance.
By uniting biology and chemistry under one roof at BioCity Nottingham, CatSci helps innovators reduce iteration cycles and compress timelines, prioritise the most viable compounds with confidence and conserve budget by avoiding costly late-stage surprises.
Advanced Labs at BioCity Nottingham
The lab at BioCity Nottingham features state-of-the-art equipment, including:
- Live-cell kinetic imaging using the Incucyte SX5 (Sartorius) to capture real-time phenotypic changes
- Multiparametric flow cytometry with 96- and 384-well formats combined with acoustic focusing for rapid profiling
- RT-qPCR to profile gene expression changes
- Simple Western™ Technology (Bio-Techne) for quantitative capillary electrophoresis at increased throughput
“This investment is about more than just equipment; it’s about bringing together the right people, processes and platforms so our customers can answer critical biological questions early, de-risk their pipelines and attract the funding they deserve.” – Dr Ross Burn, CatSci CEO.
For more information about CatSci, please click here.