Oxford Advanced Surfaces Lists on AIM

23rd January 2008

Oxford Advanced Surfaces (“OAS”), a spin-out company of the University of Oxford, has listed on the Alternative Investment Market (AIM), and has achieved a market capitalisation of £84.5 million

Oxford Advanced Surfaces (OAS) (AIM: OXA) raised £3 million at a subscription price of 25 pence per share to continue the commercialisation of its surface coating technology.  The coatings are only a few molecules thick, but are able to modify the surface properties of a broad range of materials including polymers, glass, and even diamond.

Marcelo Bravo, CEO of Oxford Advanced Surfaces said: “We are delighted that OAS has successfully listed on AIM.  We believe that admission to AIM and the funds available to OAS will provide an ideal platform for its future growth.

“This year we will be progressing joint development agreements and proof of concept projects for OAS’s surface modification technologies with a number of companies worldwide.

“At this stage, we are focussing on applications in electronics, advanced materials such as specialty fibres and composites, and life sciences, including sterile surfaces.”

The coating technology is based on over ten years of research begun by Dr Mark Moloney and Dr Jon-Paul Griffiths in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Oxford.

Dr Mark Moloney said: “We were initially interested in the difficulty in dye-ing plastics. We were able to solve that problem, but the solution these new surface materials provided proved to be far more general than we’d anticipated. We discovered that the technology could not only be used to dye things, but we could control the wetting and adhesion characteristics and disinfectant ability of surfaces.”

Tom Hockaday, managing director of Oxford University Innovation said: “Oxford Advanced Surfaces is the eleventh Oxford spin-out to list on the public markets and an excellent example of the successful commercialisation of Oxford technology.”

Oxford University Innovation is the University’s wholly-owned technology transfer arm and holds granted patents and patent applications on OAS’ intellectual property rights. It has licensed these to OAS, which was spun out in 2006. OAS was the 62nd company to spin out of Oxford.

IP Group Plc, a first-round investor in Oxford Advanced Surfaces, now holds 15.7 per cent of OAS’ share capital.

The AIM listing took the form of a reverse takeover of Kanyon plc (AIM: KNYN) with trading commencing on 31st December 2007.

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