Novo Holdings, an international life science investor, has placed a GBP £50m investment into Oxford Nanopore Technologies.
The UK-listed company is currently in the process of commercialising its molecular sensing technology globally, which functions through the detection of nanopores.
Novo Holdings will put £50m into Oxford Nanopore as an equity issue, and will likely add to this as time progresses.
Oxford Nanopore’s analysis technology is currently used for DNA and RNA sequencing, allowing users insights into the epigenetics of a sample through real-time workflows.
It is mainly used in life science research, though the company claims that it is also of great use in applied industrial settings, including biopharma.
Daniel Mahony, Senior Partner, Growth Investments, Novo Holdings, said: “Oxford Nanopore has made impressive ongoing progress to advance its technology platform and gain commercial traction. This investment underscores our belief in Oxford Nanopore’s platform and its expanding opportunity in biopharmaceuticals, where rapid sequencing, richer data and a streamlined platform can support discovery and delivery of new drug therapies. We are confident in Oxford Nanopore’s long-term value proposition after extensive due diligence within the biopharma community and analysis of their robust and extensive IP portfolio, and we look forward to supporting the Company going forward.”
Gordon Sanghera, the CEO of Oxford Nanopore added: “Novo Holdings is one of the world’s top life sciences investors, and we are delighted to welcome them as a long-term shareholder. The Novo Holdings team brings deep knowledge of the biopharmaceutical market, including biomanufacturing, a key growth area for Oxford Nanopore."
"Our technology platform is uniquely suited to address the needs of this industry, where information-rich, rapid and simplified sequencing are critical to developing and delivering biopharmaceuticals faster and with less complexity. We look forward to their support given our commitment to biopharma as one of our strategic growth vectors.”