Gordon Sanghera, head of Oxford Nanopore, the biotechnology company planning one of the biggest flotations in London this year, has reportedly misled regulators in a patent dispute.
According to The Times, Gordon Sanghera, when director of research and development for the diabetes business of Abbott Laboratories, an American health care company, was found guilty of in equitable conduct, along with Abbott’s in-house lawyer, after a patent dispute with rival multi-national drug companies.
The case has emerged after Oxford Nanopore last week told shareholders that it was preparing for an initial public offering in the second half of this year. The IPO could value Oxford Nanopore at more than £2 billion. The company was spun-out of the University of Oxford in 2005.
An Oxford Nanopore spokeswoman in a statement to The Times said the US patent trial had no bearing on its plans to float in London: “The referenced civil litigation started 17 years ago and related to a patent filing made nearly 30 years ago, in 1983. This case is very well known, as it changed US law. If the case was tried under the current, changed law, the same ruling would not result.”
