RE: New £5m deal with DHSC10 Sep 2021 09:47
Interesting write up regarding Oxford nanopore and illumina in the guardian .
I still can believe Oxford nanopore are valued at £2.4 billion .
We are so undervalued !
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Oxford Nanopore, the DNA sequencing and analytics spin-out from Oxford University, is the current “hot” company in UK biotech circles. The pandemic, runs the thinking, hasn’t just delivered a big advance in revenues from Covid-related contracts, but has also transformed horizons in the business of “analysis of any living thing”.
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So there will be relief among sensitive UK politicians that Nanopore is sticking to plans to go public in London rather than New York. “It’s an urban myth that you can do much better on Nasdaq,” says chief executive Gordon Sanghera. That’s the sprit.
But there is a US-style feature to the float that, potentially, could cause traditional UK shareholders to splutter. It’s the “limited anti-takeover” share, to be held by Sanghera, that carries the right to refuse an unwanted takeover bid for a period of three years.
A governance abomination? Strictly speaking, yes: equal rights for equal economic risk remains an excellent principle. But, equally, a one-size-fits-all approach feels too rigid. The case for exceptionalism for Nanopore is that one genuinely wants to see the company have a shot at converting its intellectual patents into commercial success.
By way of example of what’s possible in this field, look at US gene-sequencing company Illumina, which back in 2012 fended off a $6.8bn (£4.9bn) bid from the giant Roche. Nine years later, Illumina’s value has risen tenfold. There is no guarantee, of course, that Nanopore, valued at £2.4bn in its last private funding round, will be able to achieve anything comparable. But, in the interest of the broader UK biotech industry, one would like to see it have a go.
The three-year “sunset” clause applies to the anti-takeover shares, which is a critical feature: the control-freakery won’t last for ever. The structure means Nanopore can’t currently have a so-called “premium” market listing, but is within the spirit of Lord Hill’s recent review of the listing regime. We should probably relax.