- Investment in Oxford Nanopore, innovators of a transformational
new generation of sensing technology that today specialises in
DNA/RNA sequencing
- £50m to be invested by Novo Holdings as part of an equity
issue
- Novo Holdings intends to make further share purchases over time
in the secondary market, subject to availability and price (among
other factors)
COPENHAGEN, DENMARK, Aug. 1, 2024
/PRNewswire/ -- Novo Holdings, a leading international life science
investor, today announced a £50m investment in Oxford Nanopore
Technologies ('Oxford Nanopore'/'the Company'), the leading UK
Listed company behind a new generation of molecular sensing
technology based on nanopores.
Novo Holdings will invest £50m in Oxford Nanopore as part of an
equity issue and intends to add to this investment over time, with
further purchases in the secondary market, subject to availability
and price (among other factors).
Dr 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."
Dr Gordon Sanghera, Chief
Executive Officer, 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."
Oxford Nanopore has developed a new generation of molecular
analysis technology, which is today used for DNA/RNA sequencing.
The technology offers rich data including epigenetics, rapid
insights through real-time workflows and portable formats, in a way
that is accessible and affordable.
The technology is used in life science research, and
increasingly in clinical and applied industrial settings including
biopharma. It is deployed to understand biology across human
health, plant and animals, pathogens and planetary health, which
align with Novo Holdings' mission to invest in people and the
planet.
Access to fast, information-rich molecular information will have
a critical role to play across the biopharma industry, from drug
discovery to commercialisation. Rapid, direct RNA sequencing
– provided by Oxford Nanopore - can enable biological manufacturing
and quality control processes for an emerging class of mRNA-based
products, potentially replacing multiple technologies with a
single, streamlined platform and acting as an innovation engine for
a multi-billion-dollar biopharmaceutical manufacturing sector.
Furthermore, the generation of epigenetic data (variation in DNA
information that can influence many diseases such as cancer) in
large-scale studies can unlock discoveries with an impact across
healthcare.
About Novo Holdings
Novo Holdings is a holding and investment company that is
responsible for managing the assets and the wealth of the Novo
Nordisk Foundation. The purpose of Novo Holdings is to improve
people's health and the sustainability of society and the planet by
generating attractive long-term returns on the assets of the Novo
Nordisk Foundation.
Wholly owned by the Novo Nordisk Foundation, Novo Holdings is
the con-trolling shareholder of Novo Nordisk A/S and Novonesis A/S
(Novozymes A/S) and manages an investment portfolio with a
long-term return perspective. In addition to managing a broad
portfolio of equities, bonds, real estate, infrastructure and
private equity assets, Novo Holdings is a world-leading life
sciences investor. Through its Seed, Venture, Growth, Asia, Planetary Health Investments and
Principal Investments teams, Novo Holdings invests in life science
companies at all stages of development.
As of year-end 2023, Novo Holdings had total assets of
EUR 149 billion.
www.novoholdings.dk
About Oxford Nanopore Technologies plc
Oxford Nanopore Technologies' goal is to bring the widest
benefits to society through enabling the analysis of anything, by
anyone, anywhere. The company has developed a new generation of
nanopore-based sensing technology that is currently used for
real-time, high-performance, accessible, and scalable analysis of
DNA and RNA. The technology is used in more than 120 countries, to
understand the biology of humans, plants, animals, bacteria,
viruses and environments as well as to understand diseases such as
cancer. Oxford Nanopore's technology also has the potential
to provide broad, high impact, rapid insights in a number of areas
including healthcare, food and agriculture.
Founded in 2005, Oxford Nanopore is a spin-out from the
University of Oxford and is
headquartered in Oxford with satellite
offices throughout Europe, US and
Asia; and a broader commercial
presence that includes Japan,
Germany, France and India.
For more information please visit: www.nanoporetech.com
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SOURCE Novo Holdings