It’s important to lay strong foundations for successful drug discovery at this first stage of the process. Our integrated target identification and validation platform combines AI with expert insights, and rigorous lab validation to guide targets through robust evaluation, ready for hit discovery.
Validated, high-quality hits, delivered through integrated technologies and expert collaboration, give you a confident starting point for faster drug discovery.
Turning promising leads into clinical candidates with speed, precision, and the scientific expertise to generate high-quality data and deliver real patient impact.
Delivering integrated, modality-agnostic drug discovery to tackle complex biology, accelerate development, and advance innovative therapies with confidence.
Advancing next-generation ADCs through payload-focused design, integrated expertise, and collaborative innovation to deliver safer, more selective therapies.
Driving biologics innovation through integrated design, structural biology, and multidisciplinary expertise to accelerate next-generation therapies from concept to clinic.
Combining deep therapeutic expertise with translational insight to design strategies, reduce risk, and accelerate discovery programs toward clinical success.
Accelerating oncology drug discovery through integrated expertise, innovative modalities, and translational insight to deliver candidates with real clinical impact.
Driving immunology and inflammation drug discovery through tailored assays, translational models, and integrated expertise for faster clinical success.
Advancing CNS drug discovery through integrated models, translational biomarkers, and multidisciplinary expertise to overcome complexity and accelerate therapeutic innovation.
Designing and advancing differentiated small-molecule therapies for obesity and diabetes through integrated expertise, mechanistic insight, and translational strategies.
Inobrodib, an exciting, first-in-class oral anti-cancer drug in clinical development by CellCentric, was collaboratively designed, synthesised and supported on its pre-clinical journey by an integrated project team at Sygnature Discovery. Inobrodib is now showing promising results in Phase I and II trials for multiple myeloma and other cancer types.
It’s important to lay strong foundations for successful drug discovery at this first stage of the process. Our integrated target identification and validation platform combines AI with expert insights, and rigorous lab validation to guide targets through robust evaluation, ready for hit discovery.
Validated, high-quality hits, delivered through integrated technologies and expert collaboration, give you a confident starting point for faster drug discovery.
Turning promising leads into clinical candidates with speed, precision, and the scientific expertise to generate high-quality data and deliver real patient impact.
Delivering integrated, modality-agnostic drug discovery to tackle complex biology, accelerate development, and advance innovative therapies with confidence.
Advancing next-generation ADCs through payload-focused design, integrated expertise, and collaborative innovation to deliver safer, more selective therapies.
Driving biologics innovation through integrated design, structural biology, and multidisciplinary expertise to accelerate next-generation therapies from concept to clinic.
Combining deep therapeutic expertise with translational insight to design strategies, reduce risk, and accelerate discovery programs toward clinical success.
Accelerating oncology drug discovery through integrated expertise, innovative modalities, and translational insight to deliver candidates with real clinical impact.
Driving immunology and inflammation drug discovery through tailored assays, translational models, and integrated expertise for faster clinical success.
Advancing CNS drug discovery through integrated models, translational biomarkers, and multidisciplinary expertise to overcome complexity and accelerate therapeutic innovation.
Designing and advancing differentiated small-molecule therapies for obesity and diabetes through integrated expertise, mechanistic insight, and translational strategies.
Inobrodib, an exciting, first-in-class oral anti-cancer drug in clinical development by CellCentric, was collaboratively designed, synthesised and supported on its pre-clinical journey by an integrated project team at Sygnature Discovery. Inobrodib is now showing promising results in Phase I and II trials for multiple myeloma and other cancer types.
Biophysics plays a vital role across the entire drug discovery pipeline from early hit identification and target engagement to kinetic profiling of late-stage candidates. By complementing other assay types, it provides a more complete understanding of molecular interactions, helping to guide smarter decisions and ultimately produce more effective therapeutics.
Our biophysics leadership team brings over 50 years of combined experience across CROs, pharmaceutical companies, and biotech—spanning diverse target classes and therapeutic modalities. This expertise supports a wider team of more than 20 scientists; each trained in at least one biophysical platform.
We work collaboratively across every project, ensuring full access to our collective knowledge—whether you’re running a large, multi-disciplinary program or a focused biophysics-only study. This connected approach helps us succeed where others may struggle.
We typically assign dedicated full-time scientists to each project, ensuring consistent quality, output, and communication. For smaller or segmented programs, we also offer flexible models like fee-for-service to meet your needs without compromising scientific integrity.
Assay Development for Target-Specific Insights
Biophysics is a core part of our drug discovery strategy. It complements other assay types to provide a complete picture of molecular binding behavior from hit identification and target engagement to kinetic profiling of late-stage candidates.
Our team develops robust, validated assays across a wide range of targets and modalities:
Membrane Proteins: Include GPCRs, ion channels, transporters, and cell surface receptors.
Nucleic Acid Targets: Focused on specific interactions and functional insights.
We also specialize in novel targets with limited characterization or tool molecules. Working closely with our protein science team, we’ve enabled biophysical support for emerging targets across multiple therapeutic areas fast-tracking them into discovery with proven strategies.
Fragment Screening
HTS Hit Validation
Virtual Screening
DEL Hit Validation
Affinity/Kinetic Determination
Kinetic Characterization
Epitope Binning
Multi-Analyte Assays (bispecific antibodies)
ADCs
Full Bifunctional Molecules and Molecular Glue Characterization
Cooperativity Assessments
Pre-Developed Assays with Key Ligases
Molecular Glue Hit ID
Binding Characterization
PPI Inhibition Assays
Chaser Assays
Sub pM KD Determination
Hit Validation/Triage Following Hit Finding
Covalent Characterization (including KI and kinact)
Linear and Macrocyclic Peptides
Precursor Molecules
Conjugated Molecules
Link From Biophysical Techniques to Cellular Potency and Effect
Enabling Biophysics at Any Scale
We’ve invested heavily in biophysics, building expert teams and acquiring state-of-the-art equipment to support projects of any size. Depending on the technology, we can process up to 300,000 samples, always evaluating multiple platforms to identify the most effective readouts for your target.
Our instrumentation includes:
• 6x Biacore instruments for SPR (including 8K+, 8K and T200).
• 1x Dianthus for high throughput, plate based TRIC and Spectral Shift
• 1x High throughput Monolith NT.Auto for MST
• 2x 384-well instruments for DSF/FTSA
• Access to multiple NMR spectrometers for 1H and 19F ligand observed NMR
• Affinity Selection Mass Spectrometry (ASMS) for high throughput hit finding
• Other mass-spectrometry for a range of applications (ligand binding studies, enzyme assay readouts and more)
• Isothermal Titration Calorimetry (ITC) with MicroCal Auto-iTC200
These resources allow us to deliver precise, scalable, and efficient biophysical solutions tailored to your program.
Why Choose Sygnature Discovery for Biophysical Assay Support?
Choosing the right assay depends on your target and project goals. We guide you through the options to ensure the best fit:
• Need kinetic analysis or stoichiometry insights? SPR is likely the best technique.
• Working with very weak binders or exploring binding sites? NMR offers unique advantages.
• Need affinity data for a protein that resist sensor capture? MST or Spectral Shift may be ideal.
We keep all options open and often run multiple technologies in parallel to deliver the most accurate and actionable results even for complex systems.
Discover how biophysics is revolutionizing drug discovery. Delve into biophysical techniques, their advantages, and how they improve project efficiency, leading to better therapeutics. Explore the crucial role of aligning biophysical data with other assays for comprehensive insights across the screening cascade.
Dive into the world of covalent therapeutics and their promising benefits in drug development. Discover how biophysics helps us unravel their complexities and optimize their effectiveness in innovative treatments.
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FAQs
Traditionally they have been, but Sygnature’s investment in high throughput biophysical instrumentation allows us to push the limits of what is possible for biophysical screening.
For example, for well-behaved targets, we expect the following to be possible:
– Spectral Shift, using NanoTemper Dianthus: 20,000 samples
This throughput also translates to affinity and kinetic determination, where our experience
with a variety of assay setups, including regenerable assays, allows us to provide the best
throughput possible, whist still meeting our high data quality standards.
We believe that our suite of biophysical technologies allows us to investigate complex MoAs efficiently and effectively, where other assay types either cannot, or cannot do so without highly complex and labour-intensive setups. We have demonstrated complex MoAs, including multi-component systems with defined order of additions, can be well characterised biophysically. This has been particularly true for DNA and RNA binding proteins, amongst others. This is also demonstrated in our work with covalent molecules, which we have presented at several conferences.
Related Solutions
We bring together a dynamic blend of new talent and experienced pharmaceutical industry experts from a round the world, delivering excellence across every stage of discovery.
Main home page for the Protein Science and Structural Biology Department. We take time to understand your target and the ultimate aims of the project and tailor our approach accordingly.
Comprehensive target class solutions integrate advanced assays, structural biology, and medicinal chemistry to accelerate hit-to-lead and candidate selection.
From high -quality starting points to optimized leads, we unite fragment screening, structural biology, computational chemistry and medicinal chemistry to keep your program moving forward .
