Genomics plc today announces second close of its Series B financing, raising a further £8 million, bringing the total round to £33 million

10 December 2018, OXFORD, UK -- Genomics plc, the data science company specialising in the use of human genetic information to improve drug development, today announced that it has successfully completed a second close of its Series B financing round. The second close, which was oversubscribed, raised an additional £8 million, bringing the total raised in the round to £33 million. Both Foresite Capital and F-Prime Capital are large US healthcare investment companies and join previous investors comprising Vertex Pharmaceuticals Incorporated, IP Group, Woodford Investment Management, Invesco Perpetual, Oxford Sciences Innovation, Lansdowne Partners, and Tanarra.1

Following the investment, Steve Knight, Managing Partner of F-Prime Capital, and Jim Tananbaum, CEO and Managing Director of Foresite Capital, will join the Board of Directors of Genomics plc.

Professor Peter Donnelly FRS, Founder and CEO, Genomics plc, said: “We are thrilled to be adding two leading US biotech and healthcare investors, F-Prime and Foresite, to our already strong cohort of strategic and institutional investors. Both investors have fantastic track records of building healthcare companies, and we look forward to their input as we move to the next phase of growth for Genomics plc.”

Genomics plc will use the proceeds of this fundraising to enable further expansion, to continue to enhance its powerful database and analytical engine, and to pursue opportunities that emerge in this fast-growing space.

Steve Knight of F-Prime Capital said: “The world-class team at Genomics plc have made great strides since the company’s inception. Genomics has the potential to improve the quality of delivery of health care and have significant impact on the development of breakthrough drugs. We are excited to join the Genomics plc team.”

Jim Tananbaum of Foresite Capital said: “Genomics plc's platform unlocks knowledge from population-scale genetics to make drug discovery and development more efficient. Peter Donnelly, a world-class scientist in this field, has built a stellar team of scientists and engineers, and we look forward to seeing what they will accomplish for patients in the UK and around the world.”

Genomics has developed a unique analysis engine that uses genetics to understand human biology and the likely efficacy and safety of potential novel medicines. The Genomics engine is the largest of its kind in the world, with over 100 billion data points. It links human genetic variation at over 14 million positions in the human genome to changes in 8,000 molecular, cellular, and physiological measurements and disease outcomes. The company uses breakthrough proprietary machine learning and statistical algorithms to predict the impact of therapeutic interventions.



About Genomics plc

Genomics plc is a leading genome analysis company formed in 2014 by four leading scientists at the University of Oxford, including Professors Peter Donnelly (then Director of the Wellcome Centre for Human Genetics) and Gil McVean (Director of Oxford’s Big Data Institute). Its vision is to use genomic insights to transform the drug discovery industry by getting better drugs developed more quickly and targeted at the right group of patients.

Every individual carries a unique set of genetic variants. Many of these variants change aspects of our biology. The powerful idea which underpins the company’s work is that to understand the consequences of a proposed drug one can look at individuals who happen to carry genetic variants which affect the same part of our biology as the drug. This human genetics approach allows Genomics to learn about human biology, directly, in humans, rather than having to rely on the model systems which lead to 90% of drug targets failing when they are tested in humans.

Genomics plc has developed the largest engine of its kind in the world linking genetic variants to changes in thousands of measurements and disease outcomes, together with breakthrough machine learning algorithms that use this data at scale to learn directly about human biology.

Backed by some of the leading investors in life sciences, Genomics has an expert cross-disciplinary team of over 40 people, primarily scientists and software engineers, with offices in Oxford and Cambridge UK.

For additional information about Genomics plc, please visit www.genomicsplc.com.

About F-Prime Capital Partners

F-Prime Capital Partners is a global venture capital firm investing in life sciences, healthcare, and technology. Since 1969, F-Prime has worked closely with entrepreneurs and academics to create innovative solutions to some of the world's most significant challenges in healthcare and technology. For more information, please visit www.fprimecapital.com.

About Foresite Capital
Foresite Capital is a multi-stage healthcare and life sciences investment firm with $2 billion in assets under management. The firm seeks to address areas of great unmet medical need by funding and supporting transformative healthcare businesses. Foresite Capital has a uniquely collaborative investment model that benefits from insights generated by its multidisciplinary team of scientists, clinicians, investment analysts and engineers. It applies a rigorous scientific and data-driven approach to investment analysis. Foresite Capital understands the unique business models in healthcare and works closely with the firm’s portfolio companies at all stages of their lifecycle. The firm has offices in San Francisco and New York. For more information, please visit www.foresitecapital.com.

Notes
1 - Tanarra invested via Tamorer Pty Ltd

Contact
Nicola Duckworth, Head of Communications
Genomics plc
[email protected]
+44 (0) 1865 891608

Ben Atwell and Andrew Ward at FTI Consulting
+44 (0)20 3720 1000
[email protected]
 

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