Founded in 2005 by two scientists from the American pharmaceuticals giant Merck — Stephen Gallagher, 47, and Alastair Hill, 43 — Dotmatics develops software supporting new drug research and materials innovation. During the pandemic, its cloud-based technology has enabled scientists to work remotely by giving them real-time access to project data, as well as analytics and data visualisation tools. Offices in the US, Japan and South Korea helped overseas sales reach £21.7 million in 2019.