10 Years Ago Peak Proteins Was Born
Our founder Mark Abbott takes us through the story of Peak Proteins. From the initial conception to the current status as part of Sygnature Discovery.
We have grown steadily over the last 10 years and have assembled a large team of expert “Protein Whisperers” – Read on to find out more, and the origin and meaning of that phrase.
Peak Proteins was incorporated at Companies House on 15th October 2014, so we are now 10 years old – sort of. It was the culmination of a 10- week long “Dragons Den” like boot camp where most of my ideas were painfully trashed but I learnt a lot. I had no real idea if the business idea would work and looking back very little knowledge about how to run a business. But I had learnt a lot of protein science and drug discovery over a 20-year career at AstraZeneca and knew a lot of very talented ex AZ scientists still living in the North-West of England. These 2 things became very important.
The Peak District National Park: Part of the inspiration for the company name. (The other part of course is a play on the words Protein Peak from a chromatography trace). We are lucky enough to be situated right on the edge of this stunning part of the UK and many of our employees enjoy a good stomp up the likes of Chrome Hill (the Dragons back) shown here and other fine walks in the area.
The Early Days
We took our first lease out on April 1st, 2015, on a 365 sq ft lab at Alderley Park (Yes it was very small!). Nobody on a payroll just myself and then Ian as a contractor. We were able to express proteins in insect cells and E. coli and do the purification plus some quality control. Blueberry Therapeutics very generously let us use a class 2 hood and gave us a bench in their tissue culture facility. We bought a lot of second-hand equipment and ended up with a couple of Akta Primes, 2 large centrifuges, 2 shaking incubators, and the usual collection of balances, pH meters, stirrers etc. The only new piece of equipment was a small incubator for culturing insect cells that is still going strong. We had a lot of help and goodwill from many people, and we owe a big ‘thank you’ to them.
The Journey To Where We Are Now
Our first “contract” was a shake of hands with an old AZ colleague working in the charity sector. Tina and Derek joined later in the year as very experienced protein crystallographers. We added a mammalian expression system, and a few other contracts started to trickle in but our turnover for 2015/16 did not reach 6 figures. By the middle of 2016 Sygnature Discovery had made an equity investment that enabled us to invest some more money in the business. By 2016/17 our turnover had reached to >£0.25M and we were starting to get a name in the UK as a company that liked to take on a challenge and were good at it irrespective of whether it was protein production or protein crystallography. This attracted more business, and we were starting to grow quite quickly and able to recruit more people to cell science, protein science and crystallography and Hazel to head up Scientific Business Development. What followed was year on year growth of >50%, expansion into additional labs and ultimately a move to a new 16,000 sq ft facility in Macclesfield and then acquisition by Sygnature Discovery in April 2022. As a Department within Sygnature, growth has continued and we have expanded the service offerings that now includes many more cell hosts/expression systems, a huge array of chromatography workstations, a plethora of techniques for biophysical characterisation of proteins and a full suite of structural biology techniques (Cryo-EM and NMR in addition to crystallography) and expert scientists to deliver them. Most recently a close collaboration with Montreal colleagues (formerly IniXium).
The Evolution of our Logo
One measure of our steady growth over the last 10 years: Number of employees Vs Year
The structure of the platelet receptor G6b-B, solved at Peak Proteins
Who We Are And What Makes Us Tick
That’s the plain facts of the journey we have been on. Here are some thoughts that help explain who we are. We try to listen carefully to clients and work with them to meet their needs. We like being scientists and solving problems with proteins. We have learnt the skills of business; sales, providing what clients need, aware of the commercial side of what we do. Science and business are completely intertwined, inseparable and at the core of who we are. We have always really liked a challenge and don’t give up lightly. Our very first project involved an unusual post translational modification that took us 6 attempts to sort out. We have been asked and succeeded to generate a protein containing the non natural amino acid selenocysteine coded by an amber stop codon. Our first 3 crystallography projects were unprecedented. We succeeded in two including the platelet receptor G6b-B (PDB ID: 6R0X) that led to a long standing collaboration with Professor Yotis Senis.
It took us a while to work out how to operate like this in a business environment. A former colleague coined the phrase “protein whisperer” for someone who is able and takes the time to understand and tame a protein. This is necessary as proteins are very individual molecules that need to be designed, produced, handled and analysed in very different ways.
Looking To The Future
Peak Proteins along with our colleagues in Montreal (the former IniXium team) now form the Protein Science and Structural Biology department of Sygnature Discovery (read more here). Throughout our journey Sygnature have always been very supportive of us and were key to us thriving as a business. The future looks bright and in good hands. Coincidently, Sygnature Discovery celebrated its 20th anniversary last month.
We are looking forward to being a part of the wider Sygnature Discovery organisation and using our skills, knowledge and approach to continue to support clients facing tricky protein challenges.
Alderley Park where we had our original labs and offices
Our current labs and offices at Birchwood house
