Imperial Innovations Group Regulatory News (IVO)

22 November 2013

Imperial Innovations Group plc

Oxford Immunotec trading commences on NASDAQ

Imperial Innovations Group plc (AIM: IVO, "Innovations", "the Group"), the leading technology commercialisation and investment group, notes that its portfolio company Oxford Immunotec ("OI") has successfully listed its shares on the NASDAQ Stock Market. Trading in the shares started earlier today under the symbol "OXFD". Innovations has not sold any of its OI shares during the listing process and now owns a stake of 5.1%.

The Group has invested $9.5m (£6.0m) in the company, and last year led a $28m funding round for Oxford Immunotec. At the issue price of $12.00 per share, Innovations' holding is worth $10m (£6.2m).

OI is a medical diagnostics company developing novel new tests for various diseases based on world-leading research at the University of Oxford. The company's lead product is theT-SPOT®.TB test, an immunological blood test for the detection of latent tuberculosis (TB) infection.

A major global market opportunity exists, particularly in the USA where certain professions undergo compulsory annual TB screenings. The World Health Organisation estimated in 2006 that 50 million latent TB screening tests were performed each year. The T-SPOT®.TB test is replacing the traditional 90-year old tuberculin skin test, which can generate a high frequency of false signals and can be problematic to perform.

Russ Cummings, Chief Executive Officer, Imperial Innovations, said:

"Oxford Immunotec is a good example of a company in which we led a significant funding round into an established business, bringing in a number of co-investors - it's now set for the exciting next stage in its growth and development on the public markets.

"Oxford Immunotec was the first of what has become a series of investments in spinouts from the strong centre of research excellence around the University of Oxford, the latest of which is Oxford Biotrans, a spinout from Isis Innovation."

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Imperial Innovations - www.imperialinnovations.co.uk 

Since founding in 1986, Innovations has invested in the most promising technologies from our brightest scientists. Today it is connected with four of the world's top research universities: Imperial College London, Cambridge and Oxford Universities and University College London. These centres of scientific excellence between them have a research income of over £1.3 billion per annum. Innovations supports scientist-entrepreneurs in the commercialisation of their ideas. It adds value by leading the formation of new spin-out companies, providing investment, encouraging co-investment as well as through its operational expertise. It also runs an Incubator in London that is the initial home for many of its technology spin-outs.

Originally formed as the Technology Transfer office for Imperial College - a role it still carries out - Innovations is today a significant technology investor and has built a portfolio of around 90 companies. Almost £150m has been invested by Innovations and £0.5bn has been raised in total by the portfolio companies. In 2013, a £30 million loan facility was agreed with the European Investment Bank (EIB) for investment in biotech and therapeutics businesses.

Innovation invests in the most promising opportunities from whichever technology sector they arise and has built particular expertise in the key sectors of: Therapeutics, Medtech and devices, Engineering and materials and ICT.