OXFORD, England, September 19, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --
UK Prime Minister
Theresa May Announces UK facility with Capacity to Generate
One Billion Friendly™ Aedes Mosquito Eggs per Week
Oxitec Ltd, a wholly owned subsidiary of Intrexon Corporation
(NYSE: XON), today announced plans to build its first centralized
Friendly™ Aedes egg production unit, with the capacity
to generate one billion mosquito eggs per week, in Oxfordshire, UK. The announcement comes as
Randal J. Kirk, Intrexon's Chairman
and CEO, joined Prime Minister Theresa
May at a roundtable event in New York City for a
discussion amongst a small group of CEOs regarding plans for
investment and growth in Britain.
(Logo:
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"Intrexon is proud to announce, alongside Prime Minister
Theresa May, this increased
investment in Oxitec, UK, by building a state-of-the-art mosquito
egg production facility," said Mr. Kirk. "Oxitec's solution will
revolutionize how societies confront public health challenges posed
by invasive mosquitoes that transmit devastating diseases. We are
delighted to celebrate this announcement, which further enables our
global expansion plans, with the UK's Head of State."
Intrexon intends to invest £7.3m ($9.5m) for Oxitec's new production unit in
Oxfordshire - this is in addition
to the £141m ($182m) investment since
Intrexon acquired the Oxford University
spinout in 2015. The unit is anticipated to create 75 new jobs.
This facility will enable egg shipments to various locations
across the globe, where they will be reared and then released as
part of Oxitec's environmentally-responsible Friendly™
Aedes programs to suppress Aedes aegypti mosquitoes, the
primary vector of Zika, dengue, chikungunya, and yellow fever. The
new UK facility will deliver a 20-fold increase in Oxitec's
existing egg production to support increasing global demand for
Aedes aegypti control programs to reduce wild populations
worldwide.
"This investment is a reflection of the increasing interest and
traction we are now seeing for Oxitec's Friendly™ Aedes
programs, and represents a new phase in the company's development,"
said Mark Carnegie-Brown, Oxitec
CEO. "Oxitec's technology represents a paradigm change in combating
dangerous Aedes aegypti that threaten more than half of the
world's population, and this factory will better position us to
help countries in need of superior solutions in the fight against
this invasive mosquito that carries Zika, dengue and other harmful
viruses."
Over 725,000 people are killed by a mosquito bite each year.
Dengue fever infects approximately 400 million people annually,
causing an enormous health and economic burden in affected
countries. Recently, there has been an increasing number of cases
of the deadly yellow fever virus in the Americas. Additionally, the
past few years have seen the emergence of chikungunya and Zika in
the Western Hemisphere.
These viruses have devastating consequences including
microcephaly, Guillain-Barré syndrome, encephalitis and a variety
of other serious health disorders. In the
United States alone nearly 1,300 pregnant women from 44
states had lab evidence of possible Zika virus infection in 2016,
including 77 reported pregnancy losses and 51 babies born with
birth defects such as microcephaly and brain abnormalities,
according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
(CDC).1
"For the first time, we can target our enemy with surgical
precision at scale without impacting the environment, beneficial
insects, or human health, unlike conventional vector control
methods," said Lieutenant General (Retired) Thomas Bostick, PhD, PE, Senior Vice President
and Head of Intrexon's Environment Sector. "Oxitec and Intrexon are
committed to developing strategies and delivering concrete
solutions that benefit people and communities around the world.
This new mosquito egg production unit is a critical step toward
meeting our objective in supporting governments around the world in
their fight against Aedes aegypti and the diseases they
transmit."
1 Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.
7 April 2017.
66(13);366-373.
How Friendly™ Aedes
works
Oxitec has been working in Aedes aegypti control for over
a decade and pioneered the use of a biological method to suppress
wild populations of this dangerous mosquito species through the
release of Friendly™ Aedes males, which do not bite and
do not transmit diseases. When released, these males search for
wild females to mate, and their offspring inherit a self-limiting
gene that causes them to die before reaching functional
adulthood. Friendly™ Aedes' offspring also inherit
a fluorescent marker that allows tracking and monitoring at a level
never before achieved, making the assessment of effectiveness more
accurate throughout the whole Friendly™ Aedes deployment
program. Unlike other approaches, Friendly™ Aedes
mosquitoes die along with their offspring, and therefore do not
persist in the environment or leave any ecological footprint.
About Oxitec
Oxitec is a pioneer in using genetic engineering to control
insect pests that spread disease and damage crops, and was founded
in 2002 as a spinout from Oxford
University (UK). Oxitec is a subsidiary of Intrexon
Corporation (NYSE: XON), which engineers biology to help solve some
of the world's biggest problems. Follow us on Twitter at
@Oxitec, on Facebook, and LinkedIn.
About Intrexon Corporation
Intrexon Corporation (NYSE: XON) is Powering the Bioindustrial
Revolution with Better DNA™ to create biologically-based
products that improve the quality of life and the health of the
planet. The Company's integrated technology suite provides
its partners across diverse markets with industrial-scale design
and development of complex biological systems delivering
unprecedented control, quality, function, and performance of living
cells. We call our synthetic biology approach Better
DNA®, and we invite you to discover more at www.dna.com
or follow us on Twitter at @Intrexon, on Facebook, and
LinkedIn.
Safe Harbor Statement
Some of the statements made in this press release are
forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements
are based upon our current expectations and projections about
future events and generally relate to our plans, objectives and
expectations for the development of our business. Although
management believes that the plans and objectives reflected in or
suggested by these forward-looking statements are reasonable, all
forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties and
actual future results may be materially different from the plans,
objectives and expectations expressed in this press release.
For more information, contact:
Oxitec Contact:
Sarah Hoey, PhD
Press Officer
Tel: +44-(0)-1235-832-393
info@oxitec.com
Intrexon Contact:
Christopher Basta
Vice President, Investor Relations
Tel: +1-(561)-410-7052
investors@intrexon.com
SOURCE Oxitec Ltd