Lectus was initially financed by the management and in 2003 obtained funding from the Quester-managed SULIS Seedcorn Fund. Lectus quickly gained early endorsement for its innovative approach to ion channel drug discovery through a strategic investment from Takeda Research Investment Inc (TRI; the corporate venture arm of Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Ltd) in 2004. In 2006, building on its early success, in a difficult fundraising climate, Lectus raised £8.2m in one of the biggest series A funding rounds in recent history for an early stage drug discovery company. This bucked the trend for late-stage business financing. Lectus attracted two top tier venture investors: Sofinnova Partners and Quester, as well as two Japanese corporate investors: TRI (who followed their earlier investment) and Astellas Venture Management (the venture capital arm of Astellas Pharma Inc.). This blue-chip investor base endorses the value of Lectus’s approach to discovery of ion channel therapeutics. Throughout its history Lectus has maintained a pragmatic and novel approach to fundraising: delivering value at each stage in the cycle and carefully aligning itself with the market and its investors.

In April 2006 Lectus acquired NeuroServe Ltd: a company that tested electrophysiological effects of compounds. This enabled Lectus to increase the efficiency of its research, expand its intellectual property base and move its headquarters to the Babraham Institute, located near Cambridge at the heart of the UK’s leading biotechnology cluster.

• First, through the provision of expert contract research service via branch lab acquisitions where equipment and staff are either transferred to GSL in Cambridge or through GSL actively managing our partner’s core service lab in situ. Why does this work? Our partners benefit from professional service support and access to the newest technology platforms without the need to invest in capital or staff. GSL understands the research process to provide solutions to our partner’s problems. Keeping close, literally, to our customers, and implementing our quality systems facilitates a better customer experience. For GSL, this model enables rapid market penetration and growth of regional hubs (eventually 4-5 in the UK) and access to equipment capacity, expert staff and local scientific researchers for applications development. In future GSL will investigate equivalent partnering opportunities with the NHS or pharma/biotech companies.
• Second, through biobanking and distribution of biomolecular resources, such as DNA-based collections. These collections are extremely expensive to generate and represent valuable tools for future research. Academic groups partner with GSL so that we can provide a commercially viable way to maintain the archive, and promote/distribute to the international science community through a sophisticated e-commerce portal. In future we plan on incorporating cell and tissue resources.

Since inception, we have constantly developed the DrySyn range and successfully introduced our partner company PharmaCore’s custom synthesis services into the European market. We have also been awarded the privilege of becoming official agents for Vacuubrand, Heidolph, Thales and JKem. We have a 100% commitment to investing in new products and chemistries and plan to launch new ideas regularly. We are slightly unique in the way that all of our sales team are chemists. This provides us with first hand knowledge in the field. Together with this, we can talk animatedly with the chemist and discuss improvements in products related to the bench chemist.

In a dynamic world such as science, Asynt is able to adapt to the constantly changing environment of the market sector. Our products have applications in the petrochemical, pharmaceutical, agrochemical, environmental and academic sectors. Backed by our current team of product specialists, we are able to offer extensive, comprehensive and technical support on our complete product range internationally and domestically. The services, products and support Asynt embellishes are requested by chemists and developed by qualified “in-house” chemists.

Thanks to our ever-increasing network of hard working, dedicated, distributors, we have installed our DrySyn heating blocks all around the world. We have an excellent track record for successful, innovative products that are simple and easy to use but enable the chemist to save time, money and increase profitability.

Asynt joined the UK Trade & Investment Passport to Export programme in early 2005. Overseas figures rose quickly from 221k to 394k in 2006. Using the four intensive Overseas Market Introduction Service (OMIS) reports in Singapore, Japan, Spain and Ireland and grant money from Passport to Export, Asynt toured the Far East and appointed several excellent distributors. Asynt also used marketing money from the “Trade Show Access Programme”, to visit Pittcon as a new exhibitor.