OBD appoints Dr Bartu Ahiska

13 June 2019

Oxford BioDynamics Plc

("OBD" or the "Company" and, together with its subsidiaries, the "Group")

Oxford BioDynamics appoints Dr Bartu Ahiska as Senior Vice President (Commercial)

Oxford BioDynamics Plc (AIM: OBD), a biotechnology company focused on the discovery and development of epigenetic biomarkers based on regulatory genome architecture, for use within the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry, announces that it has appointed Dr Bartu Ahiska as Senior Vice President (Commercial), to spearhead the commercialisation of the Group's EpiSwitch™ technology platform.

Bartu Ahiska is an experienced entrepreneur, IP strategist and technology driver with experience in several fields including medical engineering, biologics, computing and graphics. He joins OBD from the Knight Cancer Early Detection Advanced Research Centre (CEDAR) at Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) in Portland, Oregon, where he has been Innovation, IP & Commercialisation manager since 2016.  He was a co-founder and remains a Non-Executive Director of Trogenex Inc in San Diego, CA, and was COO and CEO of cloud-computing company Approxy before its acquisition by Numecent.  He holds a D Phil in Computational Genomics from Oxford University (for which he secured a fully-funded EPSRC scholarship and Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation funding) and a MEng and MA in Information and Electronic Engineering from Cambridge University.

Bartu joins OBD's expanding commercial team and will work closely with both Glen Ferguson, who was appointed Senior Vice President (USA) in March 2019, and the rest of the Group's executive management team. 

Christian Hoyer Millar, Chief Executive Officer of Oxford BioDynamics, said:

"Bartu Ahiska has an exceptional track record as an entrepreneur in the creation and commercialisation of intellectual property, as well as an impeccable academic background. We are excited to have him join the OBD team and look forward to working with him for the benefit of our shareholders."

-ENDS-

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Notes for Editors

About Oxford BioDynamics Plc

Oxford BioDynamics Plc (AIM: OBD) ("Oxford BioDynamics") is a biotechnology company focused on the discovery and development of epigenetic biomarkers for use within the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry.

The Company's award-winning, proprietary technology platform, EpiSwitch™, aims to accelerate the drug discovery and development process, improve the success rate of therapeutic product development and take advantage of the increasing importance of personalised medicine.

In particular, EpiSwitch™ can reduce time to market, failure rates and the costs at every stage of drug discovery. Additionally, the technology provides significant insights into disease mechanisms for drug discovery and product re‐positioning programmes and enables the personalisation of therapeutics for patients in the context of challenging pricing environments where improved clinical outcomes are critical.

In April 2019, Oxford BioDynamics received the Queen's Award for Enterprise: Innovation. The Queen's Awards for Enterprise are the most prestigious awards for UK businesses.

Oxford BioDynamics is headquartered in the UK, and listed on the London Stock Exchange's AIM under the ticker "OBD". For more information please visit www.oxfordbiodynamics.com.