Surprised by Synergies

When meeting with clients, the most important skill is to listen. When I meet a new customer the first thing I need to do is to listen to them, to find out about their science, their successes, their goals and their roadblocks. Only once I can understand their work can I start to see how Cresset can help them. And only when we understand each other can we start to work together to see how we can do better science together.

Cresset software and services assist in the design, discovery and optimization of small molecules. Much of our work is with pharmaceutical industry, but our technology adds insight and value in a range of chemical industries where researchers are working on small molecule design.

The exciting thing about working with Cresset is that it’s our underlying technology that powers the software, and this can be applied in so many different ways. Yes, there are a few customers who want to take our software, install it and get to work on their research, letting the software do ‘what it says on the tin,’ and I’m delighted when we find such a great fit.

However, by far the majority of our customers come to us to discuss their research to see how Cresset’s field based approach can help their projects progress. This often means applying our software in new ways or in entirely new fields. Our consulting team has over 50 years combined experience and technical expertise in computational chemistry, but they are still sometimes surprised by the novel ways in which our software can be applied in different industries.

Recently Es-is, an enzyme design company based in Israel, purchased Torch. They design novel enzyme-based syntheses for active ingredients in pharmaceutical drugs through a computational design process. Es-is approached us through our website, downloaded TorchLite, and immediately realised the applicability of our software to their work.

Dr Amit Kessel, Head of Computational R&D at Es-is commented that, “We are excited about using Torch for the rational engineering of enzymes. Torch will provide us with valuable information about enzyme-substrate electrostatic interactions, helping us to streamline our processes.” The decision of Es-is to work with us is one example of the flexibility of our products and the value and insight that they bring to researchers working outside our core base of small molecule drug design.

Fundamental technologies like Cresset’s field-based chemistry have such potential in so many situations that our best approach remains to listen to our customers and then work together to see where excellent science and surprising synergies can take us.

Contact us to find out how we can add value to your projects.

Dr Martin Slater,
Director of Consulting