Charnwood Molecular Unveils Significant Expansion Plans

Charnwood Molecular, a leading UK-based pre-clinical discovery CRO servicing the global pharmaceutical and biotechnology market, has unveiled plans for significant expansion in 2021.

Charnwood Molecular continues to build upon its foundation in medicinal chemistry, scale-up chemistry and custom synthesis provision, evolving its business strategy to deliver increasingly high-tech and high-value research capabilities. In order to enable and enhance its ambitious expansion plans, Charnwood Molecular recently partnered with Synova, a leading and award-winning European private equity fund, who have made a significant investment into the business. The deal has provided the company with additional capital to support its future development and growth, including the introduction of additional senior leadership team members into the business.

Charnwood Molecular’s ambitious growth plan now sees the company becoming the sole occupier of a substantial 3-storey, state-of-the-art laboratory facility at Charnwood Campus, Loughborough. Charnwood Campus is a science, innovation and technology park set in 70 acres of landscaped grounds in Loughborough.  The campus was recently designated a ‘Life Sciences Opportunity Zone’, providing an environment to inspire discovery, encourage collaboration and accelerate business growth within the Med-Tech and Biopharma industries.

Charnwood Molecular has seen significant expansion of its global client base in recent years and this latest physical expansion of the business will support its growth plan across a wide range of contract research services: from medicinal chemistry, chemical development and early process research through to developing a suite of complementary services in order to provide a holistic pre-clinical discovery portfolio to its international client base.

CEO of Charnwood Molecular, Steve Allin, commented: “The truly world-class facilities at Charnwood Campus provide us with a key piece in our strategic plan to become the provider of choice for integrated drug discovery and development services within the global life sciences sector. The new laboratories will provide substantial capacity for future growth and expansion of our medicinal chemistry and process research teams, along with the addition of related drug discovery service lines.”

John Handley, Managing Director of Charnwood Molecular, added: “Our expansion plans for the business are now coming to fruition.  From hiring significant numbers of new scientists at both of our existing research sites, through to a doubling of our business development team and now adding much larger bespoke facilities, we are looking to the future to make Charnwood Molecular a very major player in the discovery CRO marketplace.”

Gosia Khrais, Commercial and Marketing Director at Charnwood Campus said ‘It is a great pleasure to welcome Charnwood Molecular as a new occupier here. This fantastic CRO with ambitious growth plans will cement life sciences as a priority sector in the region, create jobs and help us grow our local economy. It is really great news for Loughborough.’