Drug discovery company BioFocus has expanded in Cambridge after closing its high throughput screening centre in Switzerland and rationalising the work of the two centres within the UK’s leading technology cluster.

It is also hiring new staff. As a result, the company has acquired an additional 10,581 sq ft of space in Building 17 at Chesterford Research park – next door to existing facilities; it now occupies space in four buildings at the park.

Chris Newton of BioFocus said: “We needed extra space as we took a decision to rationalise our two HTS (high throughput screening) centres currently located at Chesterford and in Allschwil, Switzerland, to a single site at Chesterford.

“Extra space is needed to house the HTS library, re-located equipment and the extra staff we require to maintain our position as a premier provider of HTS services.”

Chesterford Research Park’s environment and facilities have attracted leading bioscience names including Illumina Inc and Isogenica, plus UKSPA, the science park association and renewable energy company GG Eco solutions.

BioFocus was founded in 1997 by a group of former Wellcome scientists as a chemistry services company.

In 2001, BioFocus acquired biotechnology company Cambridge Drug Discovery, adding biology to its range of services. In October 2005, Galapagos acquired BioFocus.

Following the acquisition of the Discovery Partners International operations, BioFocus DPI was formed - a provider of integrated gene-to-candidate discovery services. In 2009, the DPI suffix was dropped.

Further acquisitions of Inpharmatica and Sareum's operations added ADME and structure-based drug discovery capabilities. This gave BioFocus a full suite of target-to-candidate drug discovery products and services.

• PHOTOGRAPH SHOWS: Martin Sylvester of Churchmanor Estates, joint venture partners at Chesterford Research Park, with Chris Newton from BioFocus