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TWST: Shall we begin with a brief introduction to Oxford Biomedica (LSE: OXB.L), bringing us up to date with where the company is today?

Prof. Kingsman: Biomedica is now an international biotech company with a diverse portfolio of products and technology. We have facilities in Oxford in the UK and just recently we’ve setup a subsidiary in San Diego in the US. The company was established in 1996 as a spin out from Oxford University. Now we have 90 staff. We specialize in gene-based products and technology. We have raised about 100 million on the public markets since our foundation in 1996. We’ve got more than 60 institutional shareholders in London and Europe. We haven’t moved into the US yet to attract shareholders. We are listed on the London Stock Exchange’s official list. We have about 61 patent families underpinning our products and technology and about quarter of those have issued now; two products in clinical development and major alliances with American home products Wyeth, Aventis, Amersham amongst others. Right now as biotech companies go we are in strong cash position. We’ve got cash for at least another two years and that assumes no increase in our revenue stream in those two years, which seems very unlikely.

TWST: And the markets you are targeting and the opportunities in front of you?

Prof. Kingsman: We are in the areas of cancer, neurological disease, cardiovascular disease and blood disorders. The overall global cancer market is estimated to be of the region of 15 billion. We estimate that the markets for our products -- and there are 4-5 of them coming through -- would be in the billion dollar range. The neurodegenerative disease products and the nerve repair products are a little bit harder to estimate. Parkinson’s disease is obviously a big one, certainly in the billion-dollar range. But, if some of these products come through to market they will actually be creating entirely new markets. For example, we have a product which is designed to repair nerves that are damaged in spinal injuries when people fall of motorbikes, horses, etc. -- the Christopher Reeve type injury -- and there really is nothing out there on the market today that addresses that. Our estimates of those markets are between 500 million and 2 billion, depending upon the penetration of the product in the early stages. Similarly, we have a product for retinopathy, and really there isn’t anything that is very good out there for diabetic retinopathy and macular degeneration, which are the most common causes of blindness in the West. Again these markets are of the order of hundreds of millions of dollars. So these are all big, big markets. We are not aiming to take any of these through to market ourselves. We are following the classical biotech model of partnering with major pharmaceutical companies, but not really until we’ve taken them to a reasonable level of clinical proof of principle. In some cases that would be Phase I/II in other cases that will Phase II.

TWST: What are the three or four compelling reasons you would give potential investors to sit down and take a look at Oxford Biomedica?

Prof. Kingsman: We have very strong technology supported by very strong issued and pending patents. The product portfolio is diverse and technically strong and risk management is at the top of our agenda. Every aspect of the structure of the company is geared towards spreading the risk associated with pharmaceutical development and therefore, an investor in Biomedica has a company with fundamental strength and, I believe, a relatively low risk profile.