Novo Holdings Invests in UK-Listed Oxford Nanopore Technologies

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Aug 01, 2024, 02:15 ET

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

SOURCE Novo Holdings