Symeres

Eelco Ebbers and Frank Leemhuis both obtained their Ph.D.’s in Chemistry from the
Radboud University in Nijmegen, the Netherlands. In response to numerous inquiries from
the business world, they wrote a business plan and, with their own financial means
combined with a loan, they founded the company Mercachem in 1997. Mercachem rapidly
outgrew its university setting and merged with the Groningen company Syncom in 2018,
after which their name was changed to Symeres.

Symeres is now the leading transatlantic Contract Research Organization for drug discovery
and development needs. With over 550 scientists at seven locations in Europe and the USA,
they offer best-in-class solutions for drug discovery and drug development for small molecules
and beyond. Their services span from early stage hit finding through multiparameter
medicinal chemistry, leveraging their in-house Admescope ADME-Tox platform, to the delivery
of early clinical drug substance API (Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients). Symeres Makes
Molecules Matter. Together.

Library for potential medicines
Symeres continues to have close links with the Radboud University. They were both partners
in the European Lead Factory project (in Dutch), worth a total of 196 million euros. This
project aimed to create a large library of chemical compounds that could potentially be used
in drug discovery. The participating academic groups, including the Radboud University,
developed and supplied the basic components, called scaffolds. Small and medium-sized
companies such as Symeres coupled these basic components with a variety of functional
compounds – parts of molecules with which you can modulate biological functions. For
Symeres, this led to the Symegold library, a library of 80.000 innovative compounds which can
be used for high-throughput screening.

Contact
Symeres
Main office - Kerkenbos 1013, 6546 BB Nijmegen
Telephone - 024 372 33 00
E-mail - info@symeres.com