Oxford Nanopore Announces a Further $50 Million fundraising

By Kevin Davies   

 May 3, 2012 | Oxford Nanopore, the British next-generation sequencing company that caused a sensation ten weeks ago when it previewed details of its potentially disruptive nanopore sequencing technology, has announced that it has raised a further $50.8 million in a new funding round.   

When most biotech companies raise a successful $50-million round, they can’t say enough about their business prospects. But in a terse two-paragraph press release entirely in keeping with the company’s decision to “go dark” following the media crush earlier this year, Oxford Nanopore simply noted that the total investment in the company since it launched in 2005 now exceeds $160 million.  

 "This round of funding, nearly all of which comes from existing investors, will support a range of corporate development activities including the development of our commercial infrastructure, expansion of our manufacturing function and further R&D for our DNA/RNA sequencing and protein/miRNA analysis applications,” said CEO Gordon Sanghera.  

 “We will also continue to maintain our leadership position in nanopore innovation through maintenance and expansion of our broad intellectual property portfolio," Sanghera said.  

Last February, Oxford Nanopore’s chief technology officer, Clive Brown, gave the company’s first scientific presentation at a major conference in Marco Island, Florida. In a 17-minute talk, Brown laid out a range of chemical, bioinformatics and engineering advances that had allowed researchers to sequence a small viral genome in a single sequencing run. He also unveiled the minION, a portable sequencing device on a USB stick.  

Oxford Nanopore remains on course to launch an early-access program this summer, and expects to begin commercial release before the end of 2012. A company spokesperson gave no indication that the company wishes to be distracted by writing up a scientific paper for a peer-review publication in the near future.   

The investors in Oxford Nanopore announced thus far include IP Group, Lansdowne Partners, Invesco Perpetual, Redmile Group, and Illumina. Shares in Britain’s IP Group, which trades on the London Stock Exchange, have risen more than 40% since Oxford Nanopore’s February announcement.  

Editor’s note: Oxford Nanopore’s Clive Brown will be a featured speaker at the inaugural Bio-IT World Asia, June 6-8, Singapore.