BRIEF—Novo Holdings buys 10% stake in Oxford Biomedica

UK-based cell and gene therapy company Oxford Biomedica today revealed that Denmark’s Novo Holdings A/S has agreed to invest up to £53.5 million ($67.8 million) in the group in return for new ordinary shares, representing up to 10.1% of the outstanding shares after the capital increase.

Novo Holdings has agreed to subscribe for 6,568,024 new ordinary shares at a price of £6.90 each. The price per new ordinary share to be paid by Novo Holdings is equal to the closing market price on Friday, May 24, 2019.

Shares of Oxford Biomedica were up 7.59% to £7.42 shortly after London trading commenced.

The proceeds from the transaction will be used to repay the existing debt facility with Oaktree Capital Management in full and to further develop the LentiVector platform and the proprietary product portfolio.

Oxford Biomedica is at the center of the rapidly emerging gene and cell therapy sector by which life-changing and curative treatment has become a therapeutic reality.

Leveraging its world-leading LentiVecto platform, Oxford Biomedica benefits from a dual strategy to support its partners in the development and commercialization of their gene and cell therapy programmes while also pursuing the development of a proprietary product portfolio for later out-licensing.

This strategy has resulted in a number of partnerships, including with Novartis and Sanofi, as well as the out-licensing of OXB-102 (AXO-Lenti-PD) to Axovant Gene Therapies.

The investment from Novo Holdings will enable Oxford Biomedica to take advantage of its leading position and further exploit the growth opportunities in the sector.