Drug discovery services company PRECOS is spun out of Nottingham University

Spin out

Preclinical Oncology Services Limited (PRECOS), a pre-clinical research and development service with a specific focus on oncology, has announced its official launch following its spin out from Nottingham University.

PRECOS was originally launched as a specialist business unit of Nottingham University in 2004, having evolved from the research expertise of the Division of Pre-clinical Oncology, which has had a series of collaborations with pharmaceutical and biotech companies in Europe, US and Japan for over a decade.

PRECOS will continue to advance its work in the evaluation of potential therapeutic agents, regimens and basic research into tumour initiation and development. Sue Watson, the company’s chief scientific officer, said,“ Our extensive experience as a specialised research and development service has made PRECOS a trusted and preferred partner for some of the world’s leading oncology research companies. PRECOS occupies a niche in global pre-clinical R&D and is ideally positioned to exploit the growing cancer therapy market and we are looking forward to translating our laboratory expertise in cancer drug development into medicines with real patient benefits.”

The need for specialist service providers like PRECOS is driven by increasing regulatory and scientific rigour, and the pressure to drug attrition rates and R&D costs. PRECOS has developed patient-relevant models for each aspect of cancer progression, from pre-cancerous lesions, to primary tumours and metastasis. The company says this offers advantages over traditional screening models in identifying drugs with a high chance of success and new drugs can be screened early in the research process for anti-cancer activity.