Mercia Technologies reveals multi-million contract for major Oxford bio-tech firm

National investment group, Mercia Technologies has announced that Oxford Genetics Limited (OG) has secured a multi-million pound contract with a top global ecommerce brand.

OG provides synthetic biology-based technologies for biologists’ discoveries, development and delivery of methods within the UK and US. OG is said to have ‘significant’ experience in DNA design, virus and protein-based biologics and cell lines.

Mercia holds a 40.6 per cent equity stake in the business, and has worked with OG since 2012. Initially, it was invested via its third-party managed funds before OG became a direct investment in December 2015.

Ryan Cawood, founder and CEO of Oxford Genetics, said: “The last year has been one of continued strong growth. This deal reflects our implementation of the solid foundations required to deliver scalable automated solutions in synthetic biology.

“Our ability to deliver hundreds of clonal cell lines at a cost-effective price, without sacrificing on quality, is clearly resonating with our customers. As we continue to scale we expect to capture a large part of this attractive and rapidly growing market.”

In the past year, the fast-growth biologics business has signed many out-licensing deals and agreements, and this deal is representative of a number of other high value third-party contracts currently under discussion and negotiation.

Dr Mark Payton, chief executive officer of Mercia Technologies and a non-executive director of Oxford Genetics, concluded: “OG is a good example of our promising direct investment portfolio of companies, many of which are now in revenue growth.

“The growing quality and number of its clients is testament to the fact that the team is at the leading edge of synthetic biology innovation. I expect more positive developments from OG and a number of our other direct investments in the near to medium term.”