NEWHOUSE, U.K.—BioAscent Discovery Ltd. in April announced the launch of a comprehensive suite of integrated drug discovery services, and also noted that Dr. Phil Jones will be joining as chief scientific officer to lead BioAscent’s team of expert biologists and chemists, operating from laboratories at its site in Newhouse in Scotland.
With a successful track record in drug discovery from target identification to preclinical, and clinical candidate development in all major biological target classes and therapeutic indications, BioAscent says its team offers biotech, pharma, academic and charitable drug discovery teams a de-risked approach to drug discovery.
Since 2013, BioAscent has provided scalable and highly secure infrastructure for outsourced compound management, successfully growing its client base over this time. With the integration of a team of medicinal chemists and bioscientists into its capabilities, BioAscent maintains that it is now able to support its clients through each key stage of the drug discovery process. Capabilities include biochemical and biophysical assay development, screening and medicinal chemistry applied to tailored hit discovery approaches including fragment-, focused- and diversity-based high-throughput screening; hit-to-lead and lead optimization.
Jones has more than 30 years of drug discovery experience, with senior roles at Roche, Merck Sharpe & Dohme, Schering-Plough and Organon, and his teams have been responsible for developing numerous clinical candidates. Prior to BioAscent, Jones established and led the European Screening Centre located at Biocity Scotland.
“I am excited by BioAscent’s ability to provide a fully flexible and tailored drug discovery solution,” said Jones. “Critically, BioAscent’s extensive drug discovery track record and capabilities cover medicinal and computational chemistry and in-vitro biosciences, allowing us to offer a truly integrated service—from initial development of assays to preclinical candidates. Combined with on-site access to a large, diverse IP-free compound library, this places BioAscent in a near unique position among drug discovery contract research organizations. BioAscent can even provide full compound management capabilities if required, and this exceptional offering was a major factor in my decision to join the company.”