Company History
Astex was founded in 1999 by Harren Jhoti, PhD, former Head of Structural Biology and of UK Bioinformatics at GlaxoWellcome, together with Professor Sir Tom Blundell, FRS, Professor Chris Abell, (both of University of Cambridge) and Dr Roberto Solari, currently Chief Executive of Medical Research Council Technology.
The co-founders' vision for Astex was to develop the use of high-throughput X-ray crystallography in a novel fragment-based approach to drug discovery. Since the company’s inception in 1999, the consistent vision of the co-founders has materialized into a leading European biotechnology company that has pioneered and successfully established this new approach to drug discovery.
Since Astex began its operations it has raised more than £51 million in two principal funding rounds from leading biotech investors in the US and in Europe.
Astex operates its business from a purpose-built, 36,000 sq.ft. research and development facility on the Cambridge Science Park in the UK and has a staff of approximately 100 almost 60 of whom have PhD's.