Two Oxford academics who pioneered technology used for organ transplants are in line for significant paydays after their company was bought by a giant Japanese medical devices group for $1.5 billion.
The sale of OrganOx to the Tokyo-based Terumo is one of the biggest ever deals for a British medical technology business but may fuel concerns about the UK’s inability to keep hold of its tech success stories.
The company was founded 17 years ago by Constantin Coussios and Peter Friend, who are both professors at the University of Oxford. Filings at Companies House show that the pair are minority shareholders in the business, meaning they are set for payouts from the deal.
Other backers who stand to benefit include OrganOx employees, Oxford University, the Royal County of Berkshire Pension Fund and BGF, the venture capital fund that is owned by some of Britain’s biggest banks and is the medical company’s single largest shareholder.
OrganOx has developed technology that is used to preserve donor organs outside a human body for up to 24 hours before they are transplanted.
It was spun out from the university in 2008 and this year its main device, which has been used in more than 6,000 liver transplants, was awarded the prestigious MacRobert Award from the Royal Academy of Engineering.
Coussios, 48, director of the Oxford Institute of Biomedical Engineering, and Friend, 71, a surgeon and professor of transplantation, declined to comment on their individual stakes.
The OrganOx team celebrate winning the MacRobert Award from the Royal Academy of Engineering in July
ROB LACEY
Friend said the sale showed that “British universities are capable of generating innovation and then achieving successful commercialisation”, while Coussios called it a “win-win situation” for patients, medical practitioners and investors.
The university hailed the deal as the largest ever acquisition of one of its spin-outs, while BGF, which is owned by Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds Banking Group and NatWest and is the UK’s most active venture capital investor, said it would enjoy its biggest ever return from the sale, with proceeds of £175 million.
However, the OrganOx takeover also means that another British tech company will fall into foreign ownership, arguably before it has realised its potential, which could heighten concern in government and in the City that the country’s most promising young innovation-focused businesses are being snapped up by overseas buyers rather than remaining British-owned or joining the London stock market.
OrganOx will become a wholly owned subsidiary of Terumo, which will enter the organ transplantation sector through the deal. The Japanese group said its acquisition of the British business would widen access to OrganOx’s devices.
AloJapan.com