Mercia Technologies puts another £1m into Oxford Genetics

Innovative technology business investor Mercia Technologies announced a follow-on investment of £1m into Oxford Genetics, a synthetic biology company with significant expertise in DNA design, on Thursday.

The AIM-traded firm said the investment follows the recent expansion of Oxford Genetics' board and its relocation to new, state-of-the-art facilities at Oxford Science Park.

Oxford Genetics first received seed investment via Mercia's third party managed funds in 2013 as a founding investor, before transitioning it to Mercia's direct investment portfolio of 'emerging stars' in December 2015.

Mercia said it has now invested a total of £2.2m to date and holds 47.2% of the total issued share capital.

It said the further capital support will enable Oxford Genetics to continue licensing its proprietary technology, SnapFast, which makes DNA assembly more efficient for research and production purposes within the rapidly expanding markets of cell and gene therapy.

The company has recently appointed three new board members to strengthen its position in the DNA design market.

Dr David Hames, a highly experienced non-executive director, joined as chairman and Dr Matt Baker joined as a non-executive director.

Also as part of their growth strategy, Oxford Genetics relocated to new facilities at Oxford Science Park.

The facilities include dedicated cell development suites and new technology capable of automating certain processes, allowing the company to scale its services in line with increasing demand from new and existing customers.

“We are delighted to receive this continued support from Mercia, which follows a period of sustained growth for Oxford Genetics,” said Oxford’s CEO Ryan Cawood.

“The company has expanded significantly in the last year, and is now looking to reinforce its position as an important player in DNA design, protein expression and virus & cell line engineering.”

Mercia Technologies CEO Dr Mark Payton said synthetic biology is a key sub-sector for Mercia and the board was pleased to be able to make a further investment in Oxford Genetics as it moves to a “pivotal stage” of its DNA design development.

“We are confident that with our support Oxford Genetics will continue to scale becoming what we believe will be a global provider of synthetic biology solutions, in what is a very attractive and growing market.”