A THRIVING York bio-technology firm will shortly move into new offices that are three times the size of its current base.

The Aptamer Group (www.aptamergroup.com) is based at York Science Park and is currently fitting out a building on the site that will become its new 18,000sq ft headquarters.

The new premises will include 9,000sq ft of cutting-edge laboratory space and 9,000sq ft of office, breakout, and meeting spaces to create a future-proof, inspiring, and functional new workplace for the growing team and its life science customers.

The selected developer for the new site is ParkLaine Ltd, a specialist workplace interior design and development company based in Didcot, Oxfordshire.

The Aptamer Group develops novel antibody alternatives called Optimers, that can be used in research, diagnostics, and medicine.

The finalist in the York Press Business Awards works with partners across the life science sector, including large pharmaceutical companies such as AstraZeneca, and Cancer Research UK.

The venture was founded in 2008 by Dr Arron Tolley, 44, an early school leaver who later completed a doctorate in biophysics and molecular biology, and Dr David Bunka, 44, a geneticist.

The pair met at Leeds University whilst Tolley was doing a PhD in virology, and they noticed a market need for molecules that could plug the gap where antibodies failed to be successful or perform correctly.

After starting out in a basement, the company had several York homes before settling at York Science Park in 2013.

There, it could take advantage of the available infrastructure at YSP, which helped its continued growth, with multiple expansions of its lab and office footprint within the Biocentre building over the last nine years.

Aptamer has been continually recruiting for new team members, with a staff expansion of over 40 per cent over the past year, to currently stand at 50.

The company has just posted a range of management, sales, and scientific roles available on its website.

In December 2021 it successfully raised £10.8m as part of its IPO, which gave its two founders a combined paper fortune of more than £33m.

The cash injection is helping fund its next stage of growth, with bigger premises, more staff, along with its expanding robotic discovery platform.

Dr Tolley said: “We are excited to begin the next phase of our journey in building Aptamer Group and the Optimer platform as a much-needed, robust alternative to antibodies to support the life science industry.

“We’re very grateful to YSP for supporting our growth to this stage, and looking forward to continuing to expand the team and the platform’s capacity with this move.”