LONDON, UK: bioMérieux SA, a world leader in the field of in vitro diagnostics (“IVD”), has announced that it is making an immediate £70M investment in Oxford Nanopore Technologies plc (LSE: ONT), the company delivering a new generation of nanopore-based molecular sensing technology.
The investment will give bioMérieux a 3.5% stake in Oxford Nanopore, with the option to purchase up to another 3.5% of its shares in the future.
The investment strengthens the partnership between the two companies, which was announced in April this year, to develop and commercialize nanopore-based IVD products for clinical markets. The two companies will leverage Oxford Nanopore’s ground-breaking nanopore technology and bioMérieux’s IVD expertise to create new tests for diseases and improve patient care. They will also establish an IVD Advisory Board to advance nanopore technology into routine clinical use.
Oxford Nanopore’s technology enables real-time, high-throughput, low-cost DNA and RNA sequencing of any length, from short to ultra-long, as well as direct detection of epigenetic modifications such as methylation. This offers the potential to provide clinicians with a more complete picture of an evolving genome quickly and accurately.
Oxford Nanopore has also unveiled a multi-year joint development collaboration with Mayo Clinic, one of the world’s leading medical centers, to develop new clinical tests using nanopore sequencing. The collaboration will span a wide breadth of applications, from translational research in human genetics to detection of genetic predisposition to cancer.