Member Article

Drayson Technologies brings total funding to £41m after closing Series C round

London-based Drayson Technologies has closed a £10m Series C round to support a new strategic deal with the University of Oxford and the Oxford’s NHS Trust that will help fuel innovation and bring about the commercialisation of new health technologies.

Funding in the company, which is headed up by former science minister Lord Drayson, was led by Woodford Investment Management, with the University of Oxford and Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust receiving an aggregate of £5m of equity in Drayson.

The funding will underpin a new five-year strategic research agreement (SRA) which Drayson claim will see ‘millions’ of NHS patients benefitting from the commercialisation and development of health technology products.

Leveraging Oxford’s academic research and engineering expertise with the NHS Trust’s clinical pedigree, the new partnership is set to create a pathway for digital health products to reach market and be commercialised by globally through Drayson.

With the equity deal in place, the ‘groundbreaking’ arrangement will also funnel profits back into the university and Trust, thus closing the virtuous circle and fuelling more innovations and research.

Lord Drayson believes the partnership can go some way to battling the chronic diseases which place such a burden on the NHS and change people’s lives for the better.

He said: “Chronic disease affects the lives of millions of people as well as accounting for around 70% of NHS costs. Digital health technologies offer the potential to make a huge difference for these people and save money for the NHS.

“This highly innovative partnership will ensure that there is a pathway from invention to commercialisation for digital health products created in Oxford that will deliver benefits to patients and reinvestment back into the University and the NHS Trust.”

Peter Knight, Chief Information and Digital Officer at Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust added: “I am delighted that the Trust and the University of Oxford, working in partnership, have reached this agreement with Drayson Technologies.

“Working together will allow us to bring technologies that we invent and develop together to our patients faster.

“We will also be able to reinvest royalties from the results of research and development created in the partnership of the University and NHS back into our services for the benefit of our patients.”