Investment will fund the global commercialization of Owlstone Medical’s Breath Biopsy® platform for early disease detection and precision medicine
- Investment will fund the global commercialization of Owlstone Medical’s Breath Biopsy® platform for early disease detection and precision medicine
- The first phase of the round, announced March 2018, raised $15 million (c.£11 million) and was led by Aviva Ventures and Horizons Ventures
- This second phase, attracting global interest and led by Horizons Ventures, raised a further $35 million (c.£27 million)
- Strategic investment was preferentially sought in the round to support global commercial and development activities
Cambridge, UK, 01 October 2018 -- Owlstone Medical Ltd (or the “Company”), a global diagnostics company developing a breathalyzer for applications in early disease detection and precision medicine, announced today that it has completed its financing round to drive the global commercialization of its Breath Biopsy platform. The round raised a total of $50 million (c.£38 million) inclusive of the previously announced $15 million (c.£11 million) on 5 March 2018, bringing the total raised by the Company to c.$73 million (c.£56 million) since founding in 2016.
As has been previously announced, the initial phase of this financing round was led by Aviva Ventures, the venture capital arm of Aviva plc, a global leader in insurance, and Horizons Ventures, the private investment arm of Mr. Li Ka-shing. The additional $35 million completion of the round was led by Horizons Ventures, joined by a group of highly regarded global strategic investors including Ventura Capital and Foxconn Technologies Group.
In this round, Owlstone Medical sought participation from organizations that in addition to capital investment would also be able to provide strategic support for the business. With these long-term investors now in place, the Company is in a position to benefit from improved access to key markets such as China, to clinical and academic researchers to support product development efforts, to high-quality manufacturing partners, and to additional international funding sources.
The funds have been raised to expand commercial opportunities in precision medicine including through the launch of targeted Breath Biopsy kits, and to enable further investment in the technology platform to support the development of additional high value applications.
Horizons Ventures’ Patrick Zhang commented: “Following our initial investment in Owlstone Medical, we have become further convinced that Breath Biopsy has the potential to transform the fields of early cancer detection and precision medicine in the years to come. We believe that Owlstone Medical is uniquely positioned to be able to facilitate this change and so have provided additional support to help realize this vision.”
Billy Boyle, co-founder and CEO at Owlstone Medical, said: “The closing of this round of financing marks a significant milestone for Owlstone Medical as it places us in a very secure financial position with a balance sheet sufficient to pursue all of our strategic commercial and development plans over the next several years, which we will execute through a combination of internal efforts and partnerships with industry leaders.
“We have been gratified by the high level of international interest we have received over the course of this raise, demonstrating that the need for improved diagnostic modalities that solve the challenges of early detection and precision medicine is global. We enjoyed particularly strong interest from Asian investors in the round, and as China is a key market for the Company we are encouraged by the strategic value of these partners as we seek to accelerate entry into this market.”
Breath Biopsy Conference 2018 is Owlstone Medical’s inaugural community meeting for breath researchers. https://www.owlstonemedical.
For more information please contact:
For Owlstone Medical:
Chris Claxton, Head of Investor Relations
chris.claxton@owlstone.co.uk
+44 (0)1223 428200
Media relations:
Sarah Jeffery, Zyme Communications
sarah.jeffery@
+44 (0)7771 730919
Shabnam Bashir, Citigate Dewe Rogerson
shabnam.bashir@
What is Breath Biopsy®?
Breath Biopsy represents an entirely new way to measure the chemical makeup of breath by measuring volatile organic compounds (VOCs), gaseous molecules that can be sampled quickly and non-invasively from breath, and enabling whole-body sampling. These compounds are produced as the end product of metabolic processes within the body, meaning that underlying changes in metabolic activity can produce particular patterns of VOCs characteristic of specific diseases.
VOCs originating from all parts of the body are captured in breath, making Breath Biopsy applicable to a wide range of diseases including cancer, inflammatory disease, infectious disease, metabolic disease, cardiovascular disease and respiratory disease. The nature of Breath Biopsy, and VOC biomarkers, make them perfectly suited to addressing two of the major challenges of healthcare today: early detection and precision medicine.
Breath collection is carried out using Owlstone Medical’s ReCIVA Breath Sampler, which ensures reliable, reproducible collection of VOCs. Subjects breathe a controlled supply of air, and samples of their exhaled breath are captured and stabilized on Breath Biopsy Cartridges, which can then be shipped for analysis with Owlstone Medical’s Breath Biopsy analytical platform, using mass spectrometry or FAIMS to determine their VOC profile. Advanced data analytic techniques can then be applied in order to pinpoint the VOCs of interest.
About Owlstone Medical www.owlstonemedical.com
Owlstone Medical’s vision is to save 100,000 lives and $1.5 billion in healthcare costs by realising the enormous promise of breath-based diagnostics through the development and application of Breath Biopsy®. Breath Biopsy operates by detecting volatile organic compounds (VOCs) produced as the end product of metabolic processes within the body or as a result of chemicals from external sources such as diet or medication, changes in which can be characteristic of specific disease or indicate environmental exposure.
The Breath Biopsy platform includes ReCIVA®, a proprietary sample collection device that can take stable breath samples anywhere, the world’s only commercial Breath Biopsy Laboratory located in Cambridge, UK, and the development of the world’s largest Digital Breath Biobank matched to patient phenotype.
Owlstone Medical is deploying the platform to address some of the key challenges of 21st century healthcare. The focus is on the early detection of disease with an emphasis on cancer, with clinical trials underway to develop breath tests for the early detection of lung and colorectal cancer, and on precision medicine through partnerships with large pharmaceutical companies including AstraZeneca and GlaxoSmithKline to enable therapeutics to be deployed more effectively. Owlstone Medical’s technology is currently in use at over 100 sites worldwide.
Owlstone Medical Key Achievements:
- 27 Jun 18: Breath Biopsy platform wins the 2018 MacRobert Award, the UK’s most prestigious award for engineering innovation
- 09 Apr 18: Owlstone Medical provides Breath Biopsy Services to AstraZeneca to study disease drivers in Asthma and COPD
- 28 Mar 18: Owlstone Medical launches Breath Biopsy Kits
- 05 Mar 18: Owlstone Medical raises $15 million USD (£11 million GBP) with Horizons Ventures and Aviva
- 27 Nov 17: Owlstone Medical’s Breath Biopsy Platform integrated into GSK’s Phase II Respiratory Disease Clinical Trial
- 10 Jul 17: Owlstone Medical and Cancer Research UK (CRUK) Initiate Pan Cancer Clinical Trial to Evaluate Breath Biopsy for Early Detection of Disease
- 27 Mar 17: Aviva Invests in Owlstone Medical Breath Biopsy® platform
- 17 Mar 17: Owlstone Medical Opens New High-Volume Breath Biopsy Lab
- 07 Feb 17: Owlstone Medical commences 1,400 patient clinical trial for early detection of colorectal cancer
- 06 Jan 17: Owlstone Medical Announces $11.55M USD Fundraising
- 22 Sep 16: Owlstone Medical commences next phase in world’s largest breath-based clinical trial for early cancer detection
- 28 Jul 16: Owlstone Medical announces formation of Owlstone Medical Ltd. as a spin-out from Owlstone Inc. and closes $7M (£4.9M) investment to commercialize disease breathalyzer
About Horizons Ventures www.horizonsventures.com
Horizons Ventures, the private investment arm of Mr. Li Ka-shing, is a leading investor in some of the world’s most innovative companies and disruptive technologies, including Facebook, Spotify, Impossible Foods, Improbable, Zoom, Blockstream, Soul Machines and ChromaDex.
About Foxconn Technology Group www.foxconn.com
Established in 1974, Foxconn Technology Group (“Foxconn”) is the global leader in manufacturing services for the computer, communication, and consumer electronics (3C) industry. A multinational company headquartered in Taiwan, Foxconn offers many of the leading U.S. and international companies in electronics a one-stop integrated manufacturing solution. Foxconn generated total annual revenue of $158 billion in 2017 and was ranked No. 24 on the 2018 Fortune magazine Global 500. The company has facilities in Asia, Europe, and the Americas.
Foxconn is leveraging the potential of cloud computing, mobile devices, the Internet of Things, Big Data, artificial intelligence, networks, and robotics and automation, in its transformation as a leading high-tech enterprise and industrial Internet company. The company has research centers and testing laboratories internationally and has received more than 83,500 patents worldwide. In addition to maximizing value creation for customers, Foxconn is also dedicated to enhancing the concept of environmental sustainability in the manufacturing process and serving as a best-practices model for global enterprises.
About Ventura Capital www.ventura.ae
Ventura Capital is a regulated investment company based in London, Hong Kong and Dubai, focused on leading consumer technology companies in the pre-IPO growth stage.
