Alantra advises on Synova’s investment in Charnwood Molecular

Jan 2020

Buy-side advisory

Alantra, the independent, global investment banking and asset management firm, has advised Synova Capital (“Synova”) on its investment in Charnwood Molecular.  The deal will provide the company with additional investment to support its continued development and growth.

Charnwood is the one of the UK’s leading providers of outsourced drug discovery services and supports an international client base of pharmaceutical and biotech companies in developing novel drugs across the UK, US and Europe.   Based in Nottingham and Loughborough, the company was founded in 1998 by University Professors Steve Allin (CEO) and Phil Page as a spin out from Loughborough University.

Alantra was appointed due to its strong track record of executing private equity deals for international businesses in the pharma sector and its significant experience of working with companies that provide outsourced services to the pharma, biotech and chemical industries. Tom Cowap, Director at Alantra led the deal, supported by Partner Justin Crowther, Associate Yeboah Mensah-Dika and Analyst Harry Sparks.

Charnwood operates in a fast-growing market. Large pharma companies have seen reducing returns on R&D and are increasingly looking to acquire novel therapeutics from biotechs and smaller pharma companies, which has led to increasing investment in the sector. There is strong demand for outsourced services from pharmaceutical companies across an industry seeking a value-added partnership approach to drug discovery for their mission critical projects. Demand outpaces supply in the sector, and there remains a limited number of high quality services providers, with Charnwood being one of the last independent platforms of scale in the UK.

Tom Cowap, Director at Alantra commented: “Charnwood operates in a fast-growing market and there is strong demand from investors in this sector.  We are delighted to have advised on this deal. It provides a fantastic opportunity for Charnwood to deliver on its growth plans, including expanding its service offering to ensure clients can continue developing cutting-edge pharmaceuticals.”

Steve Allin, founder and CEO of Charnwood, said: “We are extremely excited about what we can achieve in partnership with Synova. Synova supported the business over an extended period prior to their investment, helping us to develop a strategic plan that we are all committed to delivering. They were able to leverage their sector expertise and introduced the business to a number of leading industry figures who will help us to grow going forwards. With Synova’s support we now have the resources to accelerate growth of our core service offering and to develop further specialist services to support our clients to develop innovative new treatments.”