March 05, 2026 — South San Francisco, California, USA
Global life sciences leader Thermo Fisher Scientific has announced the opening of its Cryo-Electron Microscopy (cryo-EM) Drug Discovery Center (CDDC) in South San Francisco, a new facility designed to accelerate pharmaceutical research and enable faster development of life-saving therapies. The advanced research center provides pharmaceutical and biotechnology innovators with direct access to state-of-the-art cryo-electron microscopy technologies, enabling scientists to visualize biological structures at near-atomic resolution and gain deeper insights into disease mechanisms. The launch reflects the growing importance of structure-based drug discovery technologies that help scientists identify therapeutic targets more efficiently while reducing development timelines and costs.
Advanced Cryo-EM Technology Accelerates Drug Discovery
The newly launched Cryo-EM Drug Discovery Center aims to make cutting-edge structural biology tools more accessible to researchers across the pharmaceutical and biotechnology sectors. Cryo-electron microscopy is widely recognized as one of the most powerful technologies available for studying proteins, molecular complexes, and biological structures involved in human diseases. By rapidly capturing high-resolution images of biological molecules in their natural state, cryo-EM enables scientists to understand how disease-causing proteins function and how potential drug candidates interact with those targets.
The new center provides hands-on access to advanced cryo-EM instrumentation combined with expert scientific guidance, allowing research teams to conduct structural studies that would otherwise require substantial investment in specialized infrastructure. According to Thermo Fisher Scientific, the technology can expand the range of therapeutic targets accessible through structure-guided drug design, which plays an increasingly important role in modern pharmaceutical development.
Industry studies have shown that structure-guided drug development approaches using cryo-EM can significantly increase the probability of clinical success while reducing early-stage research timelines and development costs. Drugs designed with structural insights have been shown to achieve more than double the clinical success rate while reaching clinical trials in nearly half the time compared with traditional discovery methods. By enabling pharmaceutical companies to visualize drug targets with greater precision, cryo-EM technology helps researchers optimize drug molecules earlier in the discovery process and reduce costly experimental failures.
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Collaborative Innovation Hub in the Heart of Biotech
Located in the Oyster Point district of South San Francisco, widely recognized as a major hub for biotechnology innovation, the Cryo-EM Drug Discovery Center is designed to function as a collaborative research environment where pharmaceutical companies, biotechnology startups, and academic researchers can work together to advance therapeutic development. The facility combines state-of-the-art cryo-EM instrumentation with collaborative laboratory space, enabling researchers to conduct experiments while receiving guidance from structural biology experts.
The center builds upon Thermo Fisher’s long-standing partnerships within the pharmaceutical industry, including the UK Pharmaceutical Cryo-EM Consortium, established in Cambridge, United Kingdom, in 2016. That consortium was created through collaboration between Thermo Fisher Scientific and several leading pharmaceutical companies to accelerate the use of cryo-electron microscopy in drug discovery. Now marking its tenth year of operation, the consortium has demonstrated how industry collaboration can accelerate the adoption of advanced structural biology technologies.
The newly opened U.S. facility expands this collaborative model to North America’s pharmaceutical and biotechnology ecosystem, allowing innovators to gain practical experience with cryo-EM technologies while accelerating research programs aimed at developing new medicines. Founding members of the center are expected to include several pharmaceutical and biotechnology organizations seeking to leverage cryo-EM technology for structure-based drug discovery initiatives.
Transforming Structural Biology and Therapeutic Development
The introduction of the Cryo-EM Drug Discovery Center highlights the growing role of advanced imaging technologies in transforming pharmaceutical research and development. Over the past decade, cryo-electron microscopy has emerged as a critical tool in structural biology, vaccine development, oncology research, and precision medicine, enabling scientists to visualize biological targets that were previously difficult or impossible to analyze using conventional techniques.
By enabling researchers to observe molecular structures at unprecedented resolution, cryo-EM helps scientists design more precise therapies targeting complex diseases such as cancer, neurodegenerative disorders, infectious diseases, and rare genetic conditions. The technology also plays a critical role in biologics development, antibody engineering, and structure-guided drug optimization, areas that are central to modern pharmaceutical innovation.
Through the launch of the new research center, Thermo Fisher Scientific aims to accelerate the translation of scientific discoveries into clinical therapies, helping researchers move promising drug candidates from early discovery stages to clinical development more efficiently. As pharmaceutical companies increasingly adopt structure-based drug discovery approaches, collaborative research hubs like the Cryo-EM Drug Discovery Center are expected to play a key role in advancing next-generation therapeutics and improving global healthcare outcomes.
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Source: Thermo Fisher Scientific press release
