Ori Biotech Announces a $9.4M Seed Round to Advance Innovation in Cell and Gene Therapy Manufacturing

- Syndicate includes leading UK investors Amadeus Capital Partners, Delin Ventures and Kindred Capital

- Appoints Jason C. Foster as Chief Executive Officer

LONDON and PHILADELPHIA, Jan. 9, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Ori Biotech Ltd (Ori), an innovator in Cell and Gene Therapy (CGT) manufacturing, today announced that they successfully closed a $9.4M (£7M) seed round which will be used to bring their innovative manufacturing platform to market. The Ori platform will deliver scalable solutions to flexibly address the critical clinical and commercial manufacturing needs of CGT developers.

Founded by Dr. Farlan Veraitch and Prof. Chris Mason in 2015, Ori has designed a bespoke platform to specifically address the unique requirements of the new generation of personalised, living medicines. The investor syndicate is comprised of some of the UK's leading venture investors including Amadeus Capital Partners, Delin Ventures, Kindred Capital and a London-based family office, alongside a group of angel investors who have supported the company since inception.

Jason C. Foster, newly appointed CEO of Ori Biotech said: "The successful financing underscores the potential of the Ori platform to fully automate cell and gene therapy manufacturing to increase throughput, improve quality and decrease costs. We look forward to collaborating with best-in-class suppliers, service providers and therapeutics developers to create next generation manufacturing solutions. We appreciate the support from our investors, and I am honored to join a company that has the potential to positively impact millions of lives by enabling patient access to these lifesaving treatments."

"Hundreds of clinical trials and a few recently marketed products have shown the revolutionary potential of CGTs. But this potential will never be realised unless we can remove the current bottleneck around scalable manufacturing. Ori Biotech has developed an innovative platform technology to facilitate scalable manufacturing that could eventually enable millions of patients to get access to the next generation of personalised medicines," commented Dr Alan Barge, ex-Head of Oncology at AstraZeneca, Venture Partner at Delin Ventures and Non-Executive Director of Ori Biotech.

Dr Farlan Veraitch, Co-Founder and Chief Scientific Officer of Ori Biotech added, "The challenges of providing high throughput, high quality and cost-effective CGT manufacturing are well documented in the industry and in publications by global regulatory authorities like the US FDA. By pioneering a completely novel hardware and software platform approach, we can help the CGT industry accelerate the delivery of these transformative therapies to patients in need."

Ori Biotech at JP Morgan Healthcare Conference, San Francisco

The Ori Biotech team will be at the 38^th Annual J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference on 13-16 January 2020 in San Francisco, California.

Please get in touch if you would like to set up a meeting, details below.

About Ori Biotech

Ori Biotech is a London- and Philadelphia-based CGT manufacturing technology company. Ori has developed a proprietary, flexible manufacturing platform that closes, automates and standardises manufacturing allowing therapeutics developers to further develop and bring their products from pre-clinical process development to commercial scale manufacturing.

The mission of the Ori platform is to fully automate CGT manufacturing to increase throughput, improve quality and decrease costs in order to enable patient access to this new generation of lifesaving treatments. Founded by Dr. Farlan Veraitch and Prof. Chris Mason in 2015, the Company has brought together a seasoned Board and executive management team with over 80 years of pharmaceutical, cell therapy and venture building experience including CEO Jason C. Foster (Indivior) and CBO Jason Jones (Miltenyi Biotec) alongside industry-leading expert advisors like Bruce Levine and Anthony Davies.

For more information, contact:

Ori Biotech
Jason C. Foster, CEO
jasonfoster@oribiotech.com 
www.OriBiotech.com

Optimum Strategic Communications
Supriya Mathur, Shabnam Bashir
Optimum Communications
+44-20-3922-0891
oribiotech@optimumcomms.com