NCE Discovery and Domainex Merge to Create a new Drug Discovery Company

Domainex Ltd and NCE Discovery Ltd merged to form a new drug discovery company focused on nucleotide triphosphate (NTP)-dependent proteins. The parent company will be known as Domainex, and it will offer access to its technology platform on a 'fee for service' basis through its service division, which will trade as NCE Discovery.

The new company combines NCED’s expertise in medicinal chemistry with Domainex’s innovative Combinatorial Domain Hunting (CDH) technique for producing recombinant proteins, forming a well-rounded platform for drug discovery.

Domainex will apply this combination of structural biology and medicinal chemistry approaches to the development of small-molecule drugs with activity against key NTP-dependent protein targets.

Both NCE Discovery and Domainex are spinout companies from University College London (UCL) which, via UCL Cruciform Ltd, is a major shareholder of NCE Discovery and holds shares directly in Domainex. Domainex is also a spinout of the Institute of Cancer Research and Birkbeck College London. UCL Business plc (UCLB), a wholly owned subsidiary of UCL, has also become an investor in the new merged company.

“We are delighted to launch a drug-focused platform technology company with novel approaches to both biology and chemistry,” said Dr Keith Powell, CEO of Domainex.

Alan Stuttle, an assistant director of UCLB, commented: “Working alongside the Bloomsbury BioSeed Fund, UCLB sees this resultant merger as an opportunity to invest in the strong combination that these two companies have now become, potentially delivering a much greater presence in the marketplace.”