Oxford University spin-out raises £17.4M

Funding

Oxford Nanopore Technologies Ltd., an Oxford University spin-out that is commercialising technology for the label-free analysis of single molecules, has raised £17.4 million in a new funding round, bringing the total raised by the company to over £49 million.

The round was funded by existing investors including Lansdowne Partners and Invesco Perpetual, with the founding investor IP Group plc, the publicly-quoted technology transfer specialist, also following on. Oxford Nanopore’s US partner in the DNA sequencing market, Illumina, put in more money, while unnamed US institutions invested for the first time.

At the close of the round IP Group plc owns just short of 25 per cent of Oxford Nanopore, a stake it values at around £25 million.

The proceeds will be used to accelerate development of the company’s platform technology, which uses real-time electronic measurement of electrical current through the apertures of nanopores to identify molecules of interest as they interact with the pore.

The first application of the technology, in DNA sequencing, is the subject of the partnership with Illumina. Now Oxford Nanopore will begin development of a second application, in which the technology will be used for the identification of proteins, without the need for mass spectrometry or immunoassays.

“This new investment recognises our progress in 2009 and highlights the potential impact of our nanopore-based sensing platform. We are delighted to have strong support from our existing shareholders and this important vote of confidence from new ones,” said Gordon Sanghera, CEO of Oxford Nanopore.

“The common elements of our technology platform are now developed enough to merit exploring new applications. In addition to our lead programme in DNA sequencing we are now initiating a project in nanopore protein analysis.”

Oxford Nanopore was founded in 2005 on the science of Hagan Bayley of Oxford University. The company has built additional collaborations with nanopore researchers and claims a strong IP position around nanopore sensing.

The DNA sequencing technology uses an enzyme to break strands of DNA into their component bases and feed these sequentially through a protein nanopore. This causes each base to give out a signature electrical signal, which can be read directly by the associated electronics.

In contrast to current optical DNA sequencing systems, the method does not require fluorescent labels, or expensive optical equipment to read the signal.