Venture Funding for Oxfordshire spin-out to uncover the structure of molecules and proteins

Nearly two million pounds of new equity investment has been injected into an Oxfordshire company formed from a partnership including Oxford Instruments and TTP Ventures.

Nearly two million pounds of new equity investment has been injected into an Oxfordshire company formed from a partnership including Oxford Instruments and TTP Ventures. Oxford Diffraction Limited is a new UK company that has emerged out of an alliance between Oxford Instruments plc and Kuma Diffraction, an innovative X-ray diffraction equipment manufacturer from Wroclaw, Poland. With a management buy-out team, this alliance has been spun-out from Oxford Instruments in order to focus on the rapidly growing markets in X-ray crystallography and structural proteomics.

Proteomics is the next challenge in biology, after the genome project, and sets out to define the million or so proteins in the human body. Proteins are large molecules that are fundamental to the way the body functions, and understanding how they work will be at the forefront of medicine and drug design in the next few decades. The determination of the molecular structure of proteins ("structural proteomics") will be key to this understanding, and the market for the enabling technology will sustain very rapid growth for several years.

Oxford Diffraction makes and sells sophisticated systems, which use "X-ray crystallography" to determine the structure of molecules. In this technique, X-rays are scattered from crystals of the material of interest to form patterns which can be recorded on digital area detectors.

By collecting many such images at different orientations of the crystal and by applying analysis software, a detailed picture of the structure of the molecules inside the crystal can be built up. Oxford Diffraction specialises in very precise and sensitive digital X-ray area detectors which, combined with precision engineering, cryogenic and software skills, creates a leading product in this field. Oxford Diffraction will use the new investment for further developments in detectors, X-ray sources, and cryogenics (required to maintain the crystals close to absolute zero in temperature), and to strengthen its distribution network.

A key pillar in the partnership is the support of Oxford Instruments plc. Oxford Diffraction benefits from shared resources such as premises, component supply, international distribution and support, plus technological collaboration. Andrew Mackintosh, Oxford Instruments' chief executive said "This spin-out demonstrates Oxford Instruments' ability to create value from its technology and alliances. Oxford Instruments has invested in this exciting activity, building a new business opportunity from a product line previously offered by our Accelerator Technology Group."

TTP Ventures is a Cambridge-based company formed in 1998 as the venture capital arm of TTP Group plc (better known as the The Technology Partnership), a highly successful product development, consulting and incubation company employing over 250 people. TTP Ventures manages a £35m fund, which focuses on UK and European innovation technology businesses at an early phase. Dr Christopher van Essen, Executive Director of TTP Ventures, said, "Oxford Diffraction brings together an established team with excellent engineering, and the global reach of Oxford Instruments, to offer X-ray instruments of the highest performance.

These are vital tools for research and production in proteomics, for drug discovery, and for advanced opto-electronic materials, for communications and computing. TTP Ventures was established to invest in such excellent teams and technologies, serving large and fast-growing markets, and we are delighted to be leading this initial investment."