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Oxford-based biotech company raises £200m on stock market

Circassia, an Oxford-based biopharmaceutical company, has raised over £200m in an Initial Public Offering (IPO) on the London Stock Exchange.

Circassia is focused on the development and commercialisation of a range of immunotherapy products for the treatment of allergies using the company’s innovative technology, ToleroMune®, which was initially developed at Imperial College, London.

Circassia has demonstrated clinical proof-of-concept for each of its four lead product candidates:

  • Cat-SPIRE (cat allergy)
  • HDM-SPIRE (house dust mite allergy)
  • Grass-SPIRE (grass allergy)
  • Ragweed-SPIRE (ragweed allergy).

Cat-SPIRE is in an ongoing Phase III registration study and Circassia expects to have the results available in H1 2016. The World Health Organization estimates that 400 million people worldwide suffer from allergic conjunctivitis.

Circassia, which has its head office on the Oxford Science Park, was valued at £581m on 13th March when trading in its shares commenced.

Steve Harris, Circassia’s Chief Executive Officer, said: “This is a milestone achievement in Circassia’s history which demonstrates the significant progress we have delivered over the past seven years. We are extremely proud to have raised £200m, thanks to support from new and existing investors, which we believe to be the biggest ever biotech fundraising at IPO in the UK market.”

This news follows shortly after the success of another Oxfordshire-based company, Oxford Immunotec, in raising $62 million in its IPO on the US Nasdaq in December 2013.