How one of the UK’s brightest startups lost its rights to the Oxford vaccine
Vaccitech is about to float for $700m in New York, but its vaccine heroics are a mere footnote in its prospectus for potential investors
18 April 2021 • 12:00pm
At Oxford University, a long history of scientific triumph has often not been matched by commercial success. Its failure to exploit the discovery of antibiotics haunts the dreaming spires, according to Robin Wright, the chairman of the Covid vaccine developer Vaccitech.
“A hundred years ago, they were the developers of Alexander Fleming’s big idea,” he says. “They produced the penicillin but they didn’t patent it properly, so they never made any money off it.
The government’s decision to water down new foreign investment rules designed to protect national security casts serious doubt about its resolve to keep China out of the most sensitive parts of the British economy. Raising the threshold above which an overseas stake must be examined from 15 per cent to 25 per cent will sharply reduce the number of deals facing scrutiny.
The amendment to the National Security and Investment Bill, now wending its way through parliament, was presented by business secretary Kwasi Kwarteng as necessary to show Britain is still ‘open for business’. It follows intense lobbying by the Confederation of British Industry, which fears the new rules will deprive industry of investment just as it is emerging battered and bruised from the Covid pandemic.
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EIT Health-supported start-up, Oxford Endovascular has just raised $10m in a series A funding round.
The Oxford University spin-out, is developing a treatment for brain aneurysms that will overcome challenges with existing medical devices.
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