– UK, Oxford – Genomics plc, the data science company specialising in the use of human genetic information to improve drug development, today announced that it has successfully closed an oversubscribed £25 million Series B financing round led by Vertex Pharmaceuticals Incorporated. Other participating investors are IP Group plc, Woodford Investment Management Ltd, Invesco Perpetual, Oxford Sciences Innovation (OSI), Lansdowne Partners and Tanarra.
Additionally, Genomics plc today announced a collaboration with Vertex to further advance Vertex’s efforts to develop transformative medicines for people with serious diseases.
Genomics plc will use the proceeds of this fundraising to enable further expansion, to continue to enhance its powerful database and to pursue opportunities that emerge in this fast-growing space.
Genomics has developed a unique analysis engine which 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 7,000 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.
Professor Peter Donnelly FRS, Founder and CEO, Genomics plc, said: “We are delighted to be supported by such a strong cadre of strategic and institutional investors. This fundraising will help us leverage our deep expertise in data science and genetics, our world-leading database of genomic information, and proprietary machine-learning algorithms to help bring greater precision to the discovery of new drugs.”
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 platform 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 more information, visit www.genomicsplc.com
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