Oxford Capital Partners invests in Oxford Genome Sciences Ltd

Oxford, UK, 2 February 2007

Personalised therapies – tailoring drug treatments to one’s biological profile – is one the most attractive fields in the drug industry today. Oxford Genome Sciences – OGeS (UK) Ltd of Abingdon, has secured another round of private equity investment to enable it to support its goal of becoming a leading company in the field of personalized therapies for cancer and Alzheimer’s disease. This investment came from a syndicate of investors including the South East Growth Fund, Oxford Capital Partners and the newly launched £30m Catapult Growth Fund, which was making its first investment from the fund.

Oxford Genome Sciences is poised to become a leader in the rapidly emerging field of personalized medicines by developing new therapeutics with companion diagnostics for the better management of diseases such as cancer (an example of a personalized medicine is the multi-billion breast cancer drug Herceptin).

The company’s unique technology (based on the world’s largest proprietary collection of disease related proteins) enables it to identify new disease relevant markers that act as the starting points to develop antibody drugs and specific diagnostic tests for a particular disease.

Over the last 12 months, OGeS has entered into strategic partnerships with world leading companies in the fields of antibodies therapies and diagnostics. By integrating diagnostics and therapeutics, pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies can take significant amounts of time, money and risk out of the drug development process, thus making it more cost effective to bring drugs to the market.

Dr. Christian Rohlff, CEO of Oxford Genome Sciences (UK) commented:
“I am very pleased to have completed this new round of fundraising which I see as a strong endorsement of the progress made to date, the strength of our team and our unique ability to integrate diagnostics and therapeutics. We are glad to welcome the additional expertise, which the Catapult team bring us with their strong track record in venture capital management, alongside the already excellent support provided by South East Growth Fund (SEGF) and Oxford Capital Partners. The additional funds provide us with financing visibility for the next three years and put us in a very strong position to further advance our therapeutic and diagnostic programs in the fields of cancer and Alzheimer’s disease.”

David Mott, Investment Director at Oxford Capital Partners added that “OGeS is poised to capture the rapid growth of the oncology drug market. Further significant partnerships with pharmaceutical companies are on the horizon and we believe that biomarkers offer considerable potential for those who grab this new opportunity early.”

Information for editors

Please contact:
Joanne Telford
Oxford Capital Partners
Tel: 01865 860 760
jtelford@oxcp.com
www.oxcp.com

About Oxford Capital Partners

Oxford Capital Partners is a science and technology venture capital firm with extensive experience in investing in and supporting businesses with high growth potential. Oxford Capital Partners looks for the best opportunities, backing exceptional entrepreneurs and investing across all stages of development, from start-up to IPO. Leveraging its extensive networks, Oxford Capital Partners assists portfolio companies in accessing international markets in Europe, the US, Middle East and Asia. Oxford Capital Partners is the manager of four Oxford Gateway Funds and oversees a portfolio of over 25 companies in a range of technology sectors, including ICT, clean technologies, life and physical sciences.

With experience of investing in healthcare companies, Oxford Capital Partners is focused on opportunities in the fields of medical devices, medical instruments, diagnostics and services to pharma companies. Recent investments include Oxford Genome Sciences, Sphere Medical, OrthoMimetics, G-Nostics and Veryan Medical.

Oxford Capital Partners was named Venture Capital House of the Year 2005 at the Unquote Awards.

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