Numerous private investors from the City of London back Oxford spin-out's move into the ophthalmology market with $33.5m.
Oxford BioMedica, a spin-out of Oxford University, has secured £20m ($33.5m) to expand its portfolio of genetic therapeutics for eye treatments. The investment came from the City of London with individual investors not named, but half of them are new shareholders.
The company is also hoping to raise an additional £5.7m ($9.55m) in an open offer. The £20m funding meanwhile comes close to the company’s current £29m ($48.5m) market value, and could not come at a better time. Prior to the investment, BioMedica was facing the prospect of running out of cash by the end of 2014.
The funding round follows the £2.2m ($3.7m) award the company was granted in April 2014 by the Technology Strategy Board, the UK’s innovation agency, under its Biomedical Catalyst programme. That award will be used to fund a Phase I/II clinical trial of its gene therapy for the treatment of Parkinson’s disease.
The gene therapy specialist, founded in 1995 by two Oxford University scientists, only started generating a revenue from drugs manufacturing in 2012, following the acquisition of a manufacturing facility in 2011. It is also generating revenue from licensing agreements with big pharma, but the company is still loss-making due to its level of research spend. The company is hoping that its own platform for the delivery of gene therapy, LentiVector, will also attract royalty revenues.
John Dawson, chief executive of Oxford BioMedica, said: “This successful fundraise is a testament to our leading pipeline and development and manufacturing capabilities around our LentiVector technology. There is now broad recognition of the growing trend within the gene and cell therapy sector and it is our focus to build Oxford BioMedica into a global leader in this field.”
