The founding of Scitegrity in 2011 coincided with the opening of Discovery Park, making it one of the first new businesses on the site.

 

The journey has taken Scitegrity from a start-up company, offering chemical regulatory services to computer modelling of drugs in development to assess for potential drug abuse liabilities, to today working for five of the top 10 pharmaceutical companies in the world.

 

Founders Joe Bradley and Ian Johns, both with many years of working in the pharmaceutical industry and Pfizer, Roche and AstraZeneca, had always lived locally and wanted to remain in the area. Having spotted there was no online tool available to identify regulatable chemicals for scientists involved in R&D, they took the plunge and set-up Scitegrity.

Scitegrity’s online platform – Controlled Substances Squared – quickly screens even the largest collections of millions of chemicals against controlled and regulated substance legislation in 28 countries around the world and is used many of the top pharma and chemical companies at the enterprise level.

 

Thanks to its complex algorithms, data sets and expertise, Scitegrity is able to utilise its capabilities to support the chemicals, pharmaceutical and biotech industry in the safe and legal supply of R&D chemicals, to the development of new drugs to treat psychiatric, neurological and CNS disorders through its insilico abuse potential assessments, required by the FDA and EMA.

 

Joe Bradley, Scitegrity’s CEO, said: “From our offices at Discovery Park we serve our customers around the world, with the majority based in the US or Europe.

 

“One part of what we do for our customers is linked to de-risking the development of drugs on the central nervous system and we are very excited to hear of the ambitious plans to create a national centre of excellence in neuroscience at Discovery Park.”

 

When Scitegrity was formed there was a degree of uncertainty over the long-term future of the site.

 

Joe Bradley added: “There was the widely held view that the site could close, but thanks to the vision of its owners, it’s become an excellent example of turning around such a major site.

 

“The park’s main tenant, Pfizer, has remained and continued to invest on site and the owners have nurtured a community of likeminded scientists and the businesses needed to support their work. Being onsite has given us many networking opportunities and access to support and growth advice such as the Discovery Park Reactor program. It’s a Kent success story.”

 

Given the growing regulatory environment impacting many industries, Scitegrity is now using its algorithms to extend its offering to include dangerous goods and GHS assessments of chemicals to help other sectors de-risk and speed up product development.

 

The last two years have impacted every business. Scitegrity has adapted well and is helping its clients move to the cloud, transitioning from legacy computer-based systems. Thanks to Microsoft Teams, Scitegrity is able to manage its own team effectively with work-shadowing in place, as well as providing remote training on its platform to its customers.

 

Reflecting on the journey, Joe Bradley said: “The fact that we work directly for such major names in the pharma industry speaks volumes about the quality of what we offer. We’re confident we’ll continue to grow as other industries adapt to compliance and regulation, and regulatory frameworks evolve.

 

“On a personal level, Discovery Park has given us the opportunity to create our own successful business with a platform for further growth, and the area provides us with that all important work-life balance.”