First commercial agreement for EpiSwitch® Orion

Oxford, UK - 28 July 2026 - Oxford BioDynamics Plc (AIM: OBD), the international biotechnology company advancing personalised healthcare through precision clinical diagnostic tests, announces that it has signed its first commercial agreement for the use of EpiSwitch® Orion, its cloud-based 3D genomics platform that translates 2D genomes into 3D interactions and mechanistic understanding for researchers, pharma and biotech partners, as part of a translational biomarker discovery programme in psoriatic arthritis (PsA).

Highlights

• OBD has entered into its first commercial agreement for the use of EpiSwitch Orion, marking the first time a third party has paid for access to the platform
• The agreement forms part of OPTIMISE, a UK Government (Department of Health and Social Care, via the National Institute for Health and Care Research) funded translational research programme in psoriatic arthritis
• OPTIMISE is a collaboration between the Nuffield Department of Orthopaedics, Rheumatology and Musculoskeletal Sciences (University of Oxford) ("NDORMS"), the University of Glasgow, King's College London and Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust, addressing an unmet need in the selection of biologic therapy for psoriatic arthritis patients
• OBD will be paid for both laboratory biomarker discovery work and for genomic sequence processing and insight generation using EpiSwitch Orion

The agreement forms part of OPTIMISE ("Optimising Psoriatic Arthritis Therapy with Immunological Methods to Increase Standard Evaluation"), a programme funded by the UK Department of Health and Social Care via the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR), and delivered in collaboration between NDORMS, the University of Glasgow, King's College London and Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust. Under the agreement, OBD will be paid for both wet-lab biomarker discovery work and for the processing of patient genomic sequence data and generation of insights using EpiSwitch Orion - the first time a third party has paid for use of the recently launched platform.

EpiSwitch Orion is OBD's cloud-based 3D genomics discovery platform, which transforms standard genome sequencing data - including legacy whole genome datasets - into 3D regulatory intelligence. Powered by the world's largest curated 3D genomics knowledgebase, EpiSwitch Orion illuminates the 90-95% of disease-associated variants in non-coding regions that traditional sequencing and genome-wide association approaches cannot decipher, helping pharmaceutical and biotech partners move from statistical association to actionable target and biomarker discovery.

Richard Compton, Chief Executive Officer of OBD, said:

"This agreement represents an important milestone for OBD and for EpiSwitch Orion. Psoriatic arthritis patients currently face a trial-and-error process in finding the most effective biologic therapy, and helping clinicians identify the right treatment for the right patient sooner is exactly the kind of unmet medical need our platform was built to address. It is also significant for us commercially: this is the first time a partner has paid for access to Orion's capabilities. We are delighted to be supporting the OPTIMISE programme alongside three leading UK academic and clinical institutions. We estimate a significant untapped market with approximately 15,000 genomics Principal Investigators with samples, genomes and grant funding who would benefit from using our platform. This deal reflects the growing recognition of the platform's potential across the research community of the value to the research groups of an understanding of Biology in 3D that they have never had before."

Project details

OBD, in collaboration with the OPTIMISE team, is undertaking a translational biomarker discovery programme aimed at developing predictive tools for treatment response in psoriatic arthritis. The work draws on samples and clinical data from the OPTIMISE trial, which enrolled 240 PsA patients randomised to receive either anti-IL-17A therapy (secukinumab) or anti-TNF therapy (adalimumab). The programme aims to identify and validate blood-based genomic biomarkers capable of predicting which patients are most likely to respond to biologic therapy, supporting improved patient stratification and treatment selection ahead of therapy initiation.

The programme comprises two complementary strands. The first focuses on response to secukinumab, using OBD's EpiSwitch 1M whole-genome array and qPCR platform to identify discriminatory biomarkers, which will be translated into qPCR assays and validated in independent patient cohorts, with the aim of producing a compact classifier predicting response to anti-IL-17A therapy. The second strand extends the analysis to both secukinumab and adalimumab using EpiSwitch Orion and approximately 240 whole-genome sequenced patient samples, applying machine learning approaches to derive predictive models for both therapeutic classes.

OBD's scope of work includes sample processing, genomic and qPCR laboratory analysis, bioinformatics, machine learning model development, statistical analysis, validation studies and the generation of final predictive classifiers, alongside dedicated scientific, technical, project management, computational and analytical support throughout the programme.

Financial terms of the agreement have not been disclosed. The Company will provide further updates on commercial progress in its scheduled financial reporting.