Nottingham, UK, 10th April 2017 / Sciad Newswire / Biocity Group (BioCity), the UK’s largest bioscience incubator, which this week celebrated the handover of the new Discovery Building at their Nottingham headquarters, has been identified as one of Europe’s fastest growing companies by the Financial Times’ FT 1000 report. 

This was the first time that the FT, in partnership with Statista, the data provider, sought to identify the 1,000 European companies with the strongest growth between the years 2012 and 2015.

BioCity was ranked 175th in the UK, 837th overall in Europe. One of the companies based at BioCity, Sygnature Discovery (who will be based in the new Discovery Building) also made the top 200 in the UK, placing 906th overall.

BioCity specialises in the creation and development of life science businesses. It provides homes and access to high-end equipment, shared services, training, business support and access to investment for new and growing bioscience businesses.

Paul Oliver, chief financial officer at BioCity Group commented;

“It is wonderful that our consistent performance and growth has been recognised by such an institution as the Financial Times. Over 200 companies are based in a BioCity Group business incubator, making us one of the largest concentrations of life science businesses in the UK.

“We have an incredible 91% ‘survival rate’ of companies at BioCity in Nottingham and that is something we are replicating across our sites. I was particularly delighted to see that Sygnature Discovery joined us on the list. They are a shining example of how and why the BioCity model works and are an inspiration to businesses looking to join our network, from start-ups to businesses seeking to scale up.”

Dr Paul J. Clewlow, Senior VP, Business Development, at Sygnature Discovery commented:

“It is a significant achievement for Sygnature Discovery to be included in the FT1000 and demonstrates the increasing demand that we are seeing for our integrated drug discovery know-how and expertise from pharmaceutical and biotech clients. 

There are only five other pharmaceutical companies in this list of Europe’s 1,000 fastest-growing companies. It is great that BioCity is also featured in the FT1000 as Sygnature was one of its first tenants in 2004.  We are about to enter a new phase of our company history as Sygnature moves into the new Discovery Building.”

BioCity will now be featured in a special report in a weekday edition of the FT newspaper and on FT.com later in April 2017.

Ends

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Notes to Editors 

About BioCity
In 2003 BioCity Nottingham was launched, one of the first Bioscience incubators in Europe, in 2012 BioCity established BioCity Scotland, near Glasgow, in 2013 BioHub at Alderley Park, later that year MediCity Nottingham on the Boots campus and in 2016 MediCity Scotland, near Glasgow. For further information visit http://www.biocity.co.uk

About Sygnature Discovery
The company is the UK’s largest, independent provider of integrated drug discovery resource and expertise, employing 180 full-time staff.  80% of its research scientists have PhDs. Since 2011, nine drug candidates developed by Sygnature for clients have entered clinical trials in cancer, respiratory disease, ulcerative colitis and dry eye syndrome. For further information visit http://www.sygnaturediscovery.com

About FT1000
In order to be included in the ranking, companies must meet the following criteria:

• Revenue of at least €100,000 generated in 2012
• Revenue of at least €1.5 million generated in 2015
• Be independent (NO subsidiary or branch office of any kind)
• Be headquartered in one of 30 European countries

Non-euro countries: currency value equivalent as of 31/12/12 and 31/12/2015

Eligible to participate are all companies from these countries: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Monaco, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom. For further information visit https://ig.ft.com/ft-1000/