Pioneer Group’s life science Accelerator Programme provides science entrepreneurs with the perfect space to develop their ideas, discover possibilities, build a robust life-science start-up and get investment-ready.
Having this early and ongoing involvement with trailblazing ventures gives us unparalleled insight into the entrepreneurs, the technology and their chances of success. A great example of this is Reach Separations.
Throughout the years we have seen the passion, sheer hard work and dedication of the Reach Separations team which has made them the great, innovative company they are today.
Meeting Global Health Challenges
We sat down with Victoria Coulthard, Global Head of Business Development at Reach Separations, to find out how Pioneer Group’s ecosystem and life science Accelerator Programme helps science innovators meet global health challenges.
Victoria explains: “Reach Separations work in the drug discovery industry, supporting medicinal chemists with purification – that means getting their materials clean ready for biological assay.”
“To progress through the drug discovery steps, you need clean material. It’s very hard to get clean material from a round bottom flask in somebody’s fume hood, so we take that mixture and we purify it so that it’s ready for the next step.”
“At Reach Separations, we use a technique called chromatography. Within this, you have liquid chromatography, or HPLC, and supercritical fluid chromatography (SFC). When we first started, not so many people here in the UK were using SFC routinely as a separation technique. While it’s more common now, Reach Separations is still known for providing that turnaround really quickly.”
Shaping the Future of Pharma and Biotech
She continues: “Quite often, we will work with clients who will send us a small amount of a compound to purify, and we’ll separate it into isomers and return it. A year or two years later, that same client might get in touch with us and ask for a quote for, let’s say, 50g chiral separation, and we’ll look back and see that on this tiny scale it will have gone for initial testing, and it will have proved to show some potential.”
“It’s really nice to see that compound we have separated and that isomer that we sent back has potential to change, in several years’ time, somebody’s life as it enters the clinic, and hopefully the marketplace.”
Life Science Accelerator Programme
At BioCity Nottingham, Pioneer Group provide start-ups with the space to grow organically. When Reach Separations was originally founded in February 2012, the team took on one small laboratory and office in the Innovation Building. Over ten years later, the company now has three sizeable laboratories at BioCity Nottingham, including a dedicated large-scale purification lab.
Victoria adds: “Pioneer Group definitely understand the needs of a company like Reach. If we weren’t in such a supportive environment and an incubator-type space, we likely wouldn’t have had the resource to do this. I know what really helped Reach at the start of our journey was access to Pioneer Group’s life science Accelerator Programme. That really helped the directors to build their business experience as a group of scientists coming to this.”
Not just for start-ups and spin-outs, our life science Accelerator Programme works with entrepreneurs at every stage – from idea to exit.
Find out more about upcoming programmes and how to apply here.
