Oxford Genome Sciences closes financing and moves to state-of-the-art proteomics facility

Oxford Genome Sciences closes financing and moves to state-of-the-art proteomics facility

Oxford, UK, 4^th April 2005 - Oxford Genome Sciences (UK) Ltd (OGeS), the proteomics technology company, has announced that it has successfully closed a second round of venture capital investment. The South East Growth Fund led the round, following an initial investment in July 2004, and Oxford Capital Partners joined as a new investor.

“We’re delighted to have expanded our investor base in this round. The timing is right to seize the commercial opportunity to enhance our service offering for drug research and development, and attracting Oxford Capital Partners as a new investor confirms this,” said Dr Christian Rohlff, CEO of OGeS.

The second tranche of financing has allowed the Company to move into a larger custom-built state-of-the-art proteomics facility near Oxford, UK, the largest of its kind in Europe, and will be used to accelerate the Company’s growth, primarily through partnerships. “OGeS's goal is to expand the range of services available to our partners for clinical biomarker discovery and validation in drug development, our core areas of expertise. We are now perfectly positioned to respond to the increasing demand for new options in biomarker discovery,” added Rohlff.

OGeS recently announced the signing of a deal with Bayer, and while this remains its largest collaboration to date, OGeS also provides proteomics analysis services to a number of other pharmaceutical companies.

“We have a broad therapeutic focus, encompassing CNS disorders, inflammatory disease, diabetes, cardiovascular disease and oncology, with our other work driven by the interests of our collaborators,” Rohlff said. "Pharmaceutical companies increasingly recognise that they have a need to outsource specialised services." OGeS will continue to target pharmaceutical companies, providing services that are expected to fast track drug development.

David Mot of Oxford Capital Partners commented, “We have followed the progress of OGeS for almost a year and have been encouraged by its development. This funding round will provide the company with the growth capital required to increase market share in the proteomics sector.”

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About Oxford Genome Sciences

Oxford Genome Sciences (OGeS) is applying proteomics technologies to the discovery and development of novel therapeutic and diagnostic products. Through the integration of proteomics and genomics the Company believes that a new frontier is being opened in the development of therapeutic and diagnostic products. It has established a substantial resource for applying novel concepts in proteomics technologies for biomarker discovery and evaluation. Its platforms for the systematic high-throughput characterisation of proteins expressed in clinical samples create new opportunities for improving the time and cost efficiency of drug development, as well as early disease detection, prognosis and monitoring. OGeS owns Oxford Genome Anatomy Project (OGAP™), the world’s largest proteomics database to date, comprising over one million peptide sequences from ~50 different tissues involved in ~60 different diseases. The Company provides proteomics analysis services to pharmaceutical companies that complement its in-house proteomics efforts, as part of the drug discovery and development process. OGeS is pursuing wide-ranging business development activities to maximise the value of its expertise in proteomics.

The Company is located near Oxford in the UK and began trading 18 months ago after senior members of the Proteomics division at Oxford GlycoSciences plc (OGS) acquired technology, infrastructure, intellectual property, bioinformatics and data from Oxford GlycoSciences and Confirmant following its acquisition by Celltech plc.

For further information, please see www.oxfordgenomesciences.com

About South East Growth Fund

The South East Growth Fund (SEGF) is one of nine Regional Venture Capital Funds covering the English regions. The fund is able to consider investment into companies based in the counties of Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, East Sussex, Hampshire, the Isle of Wight, Kent, Oxfordshire, Surrey and West Sussex. The £30m fund is managed by WM Enterprise* and its investors include Barclays, Berkshire Pension Fund, Royal Bank of Scotland, GE Commercial Finance, the European Investment Fund, the DTI and WM Enterprise.

For further information, please see www.segrowthfund.co.uk

About Oxford Capital Partners

Oxford Capital Partners (OCP) is a science investment banking firm with over 12 years of experience of investing in and supporting technology businesses. Specialising in identifying exceptional companies with high growth potential, Oxford Capital Partners supports companies from an early stage through to IPO. Oxford Capital Partners manages the Oxford Gateway Fund No.1 (1999) and the Oxford Gateway Fund No.2 (2003) which together have made 17 investments in technology and life science sectors. Oxford Capital Partners is an active supporter of the UK’s science and technology base.

For further information, please see www.oxcp.com