CCD Partners is pleased to announce the investment by Synova Capital in Charnwood Molecular, an award-winning CRO serving the pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and chemical industries.

The deal provides Charnwood with capital to support and accelerate the continued growth and development of the business.

Charnwood is one of the UK’s leading providers of outsourced drug discovery services, supporting an international client base of pharmaceutical and biotech companies in developing novel drugs.

Originating from Loughborough University, the company has expanded into premises within BioCity, Nottingham, and delivers services across medicinal chemistry, process research & chemical development and custom synthesis.

Synovainvests in UK growth opportunities with a particular focus on companies valued between £20m and £100m. Key verticals include Healthcare & Education, Technology, Business Services and Financial Services.

Announcing the investment, Charnwood's CEO and founder, Steve Allin, stated: “We are extremely excited about what we can achieve in partnership with Synova. Synova supported our 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.”

Partner and Head of Healthcare for Synova, Tim Ashlin, added: “Having tracked Charnwood’s progress for a number of years, we are delighted to announce this investment to fuel Charnwood’s ambitious growth plans. It’s exciting to be supporting a business that is focused on developing the next generation of cutting-edge pharmaceuticals, and to support the continued growth of the UK life sciences industry.”

The CCD team was engaged to plan and execute a transition of ownership that would secure the future success of Charnwood.

We worked closely with the founders to assess all strategic options, build targeted business plans, and select and structure the transaction.

Steve Allin, founder and CEO of Charnwood, commented:

“CCD Partners provided Charnwood with excellent strategic advice and planning which ultimately led to a successful major investment into the business by Synova Capital. During a lengthy and highly technical process, CCD partners worked hard to identify and capture potential strategic value for the founders, and were able to protect that value during negotiations.

Importantly, the efforts put in by CCD Partners enabled us to continue to focus our own efforts on the day to day growth of our business during the process. It is our belief that we would not have achieved the final value withoutthe close support of CCDPartners.”

Phil Page, founder of Charnwood, commented:

“We are delighted with the deal and with the CCD Partners team. We’ve achieved our original goal of planning a sensible transition for the founders, and, as part of CCD’s process, we have also developed a future investment and growth strategy well beyond our original expectations.

Charnwood now has highly invested and experienced figures at the helm and is set for a very bright future. The CCD team was instrumental in realising this potential for us and, for anyone considering a similar transition process, I cannot recommend them enough.”