Oxford Genome raises funds for pharmacogenomic approach to cancer drugs

Private funding round

Oxford Genome Sciences Ltd (OGeS) has raised a further undisclosed round of private funding, enabling it to progress development of its personalised cancer treatments. The investment came from a syndicate led by the newly launched £30 million Catapult Growth Fund, which was making its first investment from the fund. Other investors included South East Growth Fund and Oxford Capital Partners.

OGeS is the remnant of the quoted company Oxford GlycoSciences plc, which was acquired by Celltech plc in 2003. It claims to own the largest proprietary collection of disease-related proteins, which it is using as the basis of new antibody therapies for cancer. Each therapy will be accompanied by a diagnostic allowing personalised treatment. The company claims this integrated approach takes significant amounts of time, money and risk out of the drug development.  

Over the past 12 months OGeS has agreed partnerships with companies including Medarex and Biosite, as well as Oxford University and the GE Healthcare consortium. Together these agreements enable the company to co-develop antibodies for cancers including colorectal cancer, accompanied by a customised diagnostic product for each therapy.

Christian Rohlff, CEO, said the money would last for the next three years. The company’s technology platform combines genomic, proteomic and clinical information, enabling it to accelerate the discovery and validation of drug targets and biomarkers. OGeS says the benefits are improved biomarkers for patient selection, drug response and efficacy monitoring, and the integration of diagnostics into drug development and product launch.