Topping-out ceremony for Sygnature’s new Discovery Building
A significant milestone was passed during the construction of the new £30 million Discovery Building at BioCity Nottingham, which will become Sygnature Discovery’s new headquarters from March 2017.
The topping-out ceremony took place on Friday 29th April 2016 with developers, contractors and Nottingham City Council (NCC) leaders coming together to celebrate the final concrete being poured to create the ‘state-of-the-art’ Discovery Building overlooking Parliament Street. This building forms an expansion of the highly-successful BioCity bioincubator complex and will help cement Nottingham’s position as one of the UK’s fastest growing life sciences communities.
The Discovery Building will be operated by BioCity on behalf of NCC when completed in Spring 2017, and will be the new home for Sygnature Discovery as it continues to expand and evolve.
Commenting, Sygnature Discovery’s Chief Operating Officer, Dr Jonathan Williams, said: “Sygnature is delighted to be part of this exciting addition to Nottingham’s cityscape. The Discovery Building will allow Sygnature to remain in Nottingham, continue to grow by creating high quality science jobs and enhance our ability to discover new medicines. The addition of the Corona Brise Soleil to an already impressive building will create a real landmark – a testament to NCC’s commitment to attracting and retaining a vibrant life-sciences community in the city”.
Councillor Jon Collins, Leader for Nottingham City Council and Portfolio Holder for Strategic Regeneration, said: “This building recognises the importance of bioscience to our local economy and just as the first BioCity building has done so successfully, it will provide fledgling companies and the next generation of entrepreneurs the chance to grow and expand by making use of a range of high-tech chemistry and biology laboratories. The new building has already allowed us to keep home-grown talent here in Nottingham and is expected to help create 700 more specialist bioscience roles in Nottingham over the next 30 years.”
Sygnature Discovery has been based in BioCity since it was founded in 2004. Over 80% of their current 150 employees have PhDs, and many have links to the city’s two world-renowned universities. Moving to the new Discovery Building will enable Sygnature to create 70 specialist new research roles by the end of 2018 to support large and more complex integrated drug discovery projects directed towards a range of debilitating and often fatal diseases with considerable unmet medical needs, such as cancer, neurodegenerative diseases, lung disorders and metabolic diseases. Sygnature’s global client base will benefit greatly from the continued co-location of experienced drug hunters within the Discovery Building.