Oxford Nanopore Technologies has revealed investment of £109.5 million through new capital and the sale of secondary shares.
The firm, spun out of Professor Hagan Bayley’s University of Oxford lab, has developed a real-time DNA/RNA sequencer and can assist with accurate, rapid testing in cancer and infectious disease.
Oxford Nanopore Technologies raised £29.3m in new capital and additionally facilitated the sale of secondary shares worth £80.2m.
The funds were raised internationally and include both new investors and existing shareholders, from the US, Europe and Asia/Pacific.
It takes the total primary investment in Oxford Nanopore to around £480m to date.
Alan Aubrey, CEO of investor IP Group PLC, said: “We’re delighted to see another successful fundraising for Oxford Nanopore which rounds off an impressive year of commercial success and technical validation of nanopore sequencing.”
Last month, Oxford Nanopore confirmed that its technology had been selected for the population-scale ‘Genome Program’ launched by Abu Dhabi’s Department of Health.
The project aims to be the first of its kind worldwide to provide citizens with their own high-quality genome as a baseline and aims to incorporate genomic data into healthcare management.
Among other developments during 2019, Oxford Nanopore users reported new methods for rapid cancer and infectious disease characterisation, HLA tissue typing and food safety.