Vernalis

Vernalis

Vernalis was founded more than 25 years ago, with Dr. James Murray joining in 2001 as Head of Research. The firm operates as a contract research organization, not a family office or asset manager, partnering with pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies on drug discovery programs. Vernalis' platform spans protein science, hit identification through fragment-based and DEL methods, biophysics (including NMR and X-ray crystallography), medicinal and flow chemistry, computational chemistry using in-house machine learning, cell biology, and DMPK. The firm has contributed to multiple candidate discoveries, notably BH3 mimetics targeting Mcl-1 and Bcl-2, with over 60 peer-reviewed papers and 13 granted patents attributed to Murray. It collaborates with organizations globally, with an additional office network including Pleasant Hill, Herzliya, New York, and Dubai. The open-source Vernalis KNIME nodes were the most downloaded and used extension in the KNIME community in 2023. The firm employs about 7 named senior professionals including a finance director, general counsel, business development leads, project leaders, and a director of chemistry. It is part of the HitGen Group, a listed Chinese DNA-encoded library technology company. A dated operational event: in 2023, Vernalis' KNIME nodes became the most downloaded extension in the KNIME community. Vernalis' structural differentiator is its combination of fragment-based drug discovery with integrated computational and biophysical methods, plus access to HitGen's large DEL platform. This positions it as a full-service CRO capable of tackling historically difficult targets, rather than a pure service provider.