Drug discovery companies identify, validate and develop new therapeutic candidates for the prevention and treatment of disease. The sector combines biology, chemistry, data science and clinical expertise to bring new medicines from concept to clinic.
This category includes companies working on:
Browse 495 UK drug discovery companies below.
Off-the-shelf cancer immunotherapies targeting solid tumours
Scancell is a clinical-stage biotech developing active immunotherapies and antibody-based therapeutics for cancer. Its pipeline spans DNA cancer vaccines, peptide immunotherapies and tumour-specific monoclonal antibodies targeting glycans expressed on cancer cells. Lead programmes iSCIB1+ and Modi-1 are in Phase 2…
Separation, purification, and sample preparation tools for life science workflows
Biotage GB is the UK subsidiary of Biotage AB, a Swedish life science tools group with manufacturing roots in Wales dating to 1969. Operating from facilities in Ystrad Mynach and Cardiff, the company designs and manufactures flash purification instruments and columns, solid phase extraction cartridges, and automated…
Computational chemistry and data informatics for drug discovery
NovaData Solutions is a contract research organisation providing computational chemistry, molecular modelling, and data informatics services to pharmaceutical and biotechnology clients. Its capabilities span the early drug discovery workflow, including target validation, hit identification, lead optimisation, and…
Chromatography columns and sample preparation products for analytical science
Phenomenex is a global manufacturer and supplier of analytical chemistry consumables and instruments, specialising in chromatography columns and sample preparation products for separation and purification applications. Products include HPLC, UHPLC, and GC columns, solid phase extraction cartridges, and bulk…
Cambridge campus uniting biomedical research, hospitals and life sciences
Cambridge Biomedical Campus is a life sciences and healthcare campus bringing together hospitals, research institutes, universities and biotechnology companies. The site integrates clinical care, academic research and pharmaceutical development, enabling collaboration across drug discovery, translational medicine and…
Human cardiomyocyte assays for cardiac safety pharmacology
Clyde Biosciences is a contract research organisation specialising in human cardiomyocyte assays for cardiac drug safety and efficacy. Its optical platform measures membrane voltage, calcium dynamics and contraction in induced pluripotent stem cell-derived cardiomyocytes within a single experiment, generating…
AI-driven protein interaction modelling for peptide drug discovery
Xenos Bio is developing a computational platform that uses physics-based algorithms integrated with machine learning to predict protein-protein interactions and identify binding motifs within functional protein domains. Its software is deployed for rational peptide library construction, delivering enhanced hit…
Specialist immunology CRO for preclinical biotherapeutic drug discovery
RoukenBio is a specialist contract research organisation providing preclinical immunology services to biopharmaceutical companies worldwide. Its team offers cell-based bioassay development, functional characterisation of antibody therapeutics and complex biologics, cell line engineering, and CMC-quality potency assay…
Small molecule therapeutics targeting astrocytes in Parkinson's disease
Cellestial Health is a pre-clinical stage biotechnology company and University of Cambridge spinout developing small molecule therapeutics for Parkinson's disease and other neurodegenerative conditions. The company's approach targets astrocytic networks, a class of brain cells whose dysregulation contributes to…
Biologic therapies for autoinflammatory and autoimmune diseases
Kiniksa Pharmaceuticals International is a commercial-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on acquiring, developing and commercialising medicines for autoinflammatory and autoimmune diseases with significant unmet need. Its approved product, rilonacept, is an IL-1 inhibitor indicated for recurrent pericarditis. The…
Immunology CRO for immuno-oncology, autoimmunity and inflammation
Celentyx is a contract research organisation providing bespoke assay services in human immunology to pharmaceutical and biotechnology clients. Operating from sites in Birmingham and Oxford, the company uses primary human cells and tissues from healthy donors and patients to support drug discovery across…
Oncolytic viral therapies engineered for intravenous cancer treatment
Theolytics is a clinical-stage biotechnology company developing oncolytic viral therapies for cancer. Its phenotypic screening platform enables the discovery and development of adenovirus-based candidates optimised for intravenous delivery and specific patient populations. The lead programme, THEO-260, entered Phase…
Cambridge R&D hub for GPCR-based drug discovery
Nxera Pharma UK is the Cambridge-based drug discovery arm of Tokyo-listed Nxera Pharma, formerly Sosei Heptares, operating from Granta Park with approximately 170 scientists. Its structure-based drug discovery capabilities have produced over 50 resolved GPCR structures. Following a restructuring in November 2025, the…
Not-for-profit research organisation targeting intrinsically disordered proteins
Bind Research is the UK's first Focused Research Organisation, established to make intrinsically disordered proteins druggable targets for new medicines. The organisation integrates NMR spectroscopy, biophysical characterisation, chemoproteomics, and AI to build comprehensive datasets of disordered protein-small…
Lab-grown human skin equivalent for cosmetic and pharmaceutical testing
Labskin is a contract research organisation offering preclinical testing services built around a proprietary full-thickness, lab-grown human skin equivalent. The model incorporates primary human keratinocytes and fibroblasts and is uniquely capable of hosting the skin's natural microflora, enabling microbiome-relevant…
AI-powered molecular design software for medicinal chemists
deepmirror is a software company developing an AI-powered drug design application for medicinal chemists. Its no-code interface integrates generative molecular design with predictive modelling of key drug properties including target affinity, ADMET profiles and solubility, enabling hit-to-lead and lead optimisation…
Microbiome emulation platform for drug development de-risking
BioCorteX is a biotech company that applies computational emulation to model interactions between drugs, the human microbiome, and the immune system. Its platform uses physics- and chemistry-based simulation to generate in-silico predictions of drug-bacteria interactions across diverse patient populations. The…
Fragment-based drug discovery platform for oncology and CNS disorders
Astex Pharmaceuticals is a drug discovery and development company pioneering fragment-based drug discovery through its proprietary Pyramid platform, applied to oncology and central nervous system disorders. Astex maintains an internal pipeline alongside active collaborations with MSD targeting KRAS and p53. The…
Cheminformatics workflow and scientific data management software
Informatics Matters is a scientific software company developing cheminformatics platforms and computational workflows for pharmaceutical and biotechnology research. Its Squonk platform enables reproducible computational chemistry workflows, including compound screening and data processing, while Fragnet Search…
Small molecule CDMO delivering process chemistry and API manufacturing services
Onyx Scientific is a contract manufacturing organisation specialising in small molecule active pharmaceutical ingredients. The company supports pharma and biotech clients from discovery through commercial manufacture, offering custom synthesis, lead optimisation, process development, solid state chemistry and GMP…