About ATDBio
Our history
Before ATDBio
In 1985 husband-and-wife team Prof. Tom Brown (then Lecturer in Chemistry at the University and Edinburgh) and Dr Dorcas Brown founded Oswel, one of the first oligonucleotide synthesis services in Europe.
Oswel was established as a service for the academic community, with funding from the Wellcome Trust. Through a management buyout from the University of Edinburgh (one of the first of its kind), Oswel became a highly successful and profitable small business, with around 25 employees at the time of its sale to Eurogentec in 1999.
After Tom and Dorcas's involvement in Oswel ended, the company faltered in the hands of its new owners, and UK operations were shut down. The experience of what made Oswel successful, as well as how quickly things deteriorated afterwards, informed much of Tom and Dorcas's strategy with ATDBio.
ATDBio
Early years in Southampton
A Need for High Quality Oligonucleotides
Now at the University of Southampton, Prof. Brown started making oligos for previous customers as a favour, and it quickly became apparent that there was an unfulfilled market for high quality, specialised oligonucleotides.
Tom and Dorcas started ATDBio in 2005 at the University with some staff who had been made redundant from Oswel, an existing customer base, and even some equipment that had been made available (and without external financial support). Specializing in high quality, complex, often highly chemically modified oligonucleotides (which were not readily available elsewhere) with world-leading technical support, ATDBio quickly established itself as a leader in the segment.
Partnerships with emerging sequencing and diagnostics companies
ATDBio worked with several startup companies in the diagnostic and sequencing space in the mid–late 200s, helping them to develop and refine their technology. Several of these companies went on to become some of the world's most important biotech companies, and ATDBio is a key supplier to these companies to this day.
Expansion to Oxford
By the early 2010s, ATDBio had become very busy and had started to outgrow its premises at the University of Southampton. This meant that further expansion was not possible, and it was difficult to take on research and development projects (owing to lack of space but also time).
A second site was established at the Oxford Science Park (initially a small lab in 2013, then a larger suite of laboratories in 2014) by Dr Tom Brown (Jnr), who had joined the business full time in 2010, and his wife Dr Joanna Sobek Brown. Dr Asha Brown (Tom Jnr's sister, and Tom and Dorcas's daughter) joined full-time in 2017 and now helps to run the Oxford lab.
R&D partnerships and additional production capacity
The Oxford lab provided “breathing room” for the business, allowing new synthesis, purification and analysis methods to be developed (and then introduced to the main production laboratory in Southampton), enabling R&D projects to be conducted (with external grants, and in collaboration with customers), and providing additional production capacity (which was needed when the COVID-19 pandemic hit).
Increase in production scale to support COVID-19 testing
The pandemic brought oligonucleotides into the public eye and on the front pages of newspapers, and ATDBio was called upon to rapidly expand production its production capabilities to support its customers developing testing kits at scale.
Substantial investment in large scale oligonucleotide synthesis and purification equipment, and a change in priorities at the Oxford site (with many R&D projects put on hold, and staff working around the clock) enabled the production of tens of grams of oligonucleotide primers and probes for COVID-19 testing within a few months in 2020/21.
The new equipment and processes developed during the pandemic helped enable the future production of therapeutic oligonucleotides at scale.
ATDBio joins the Biotage Group
Looking to build on the growth of the business leading up to and through the pandemic, ATDBio's founders accepted an acquisition offer from Biotage, a global life sciences company, in 2021.
The founders remained with the company following the acquisition, with Dr Tom Brown (Jnr) taking on the role of Managing Director and Dr Asha Brown Lead Scientist. Dr Dorcas Brown retired in 2023, with Dr Daniel Singleton 2013 taking over from Dorcas as Head of the Southampton Production Laboratory (after a 10–year apprenticeship under Dorcas). Prof. Tom Brown remained with the company as a consultant, providing advice and guidance on scientific and strategic matters.
With an explosion in interest in therapeutic oligonucleotides, continued development of oligonucleotides in molecular diagnostics and next-generation sequencing (for example, in exciting areas such as single cell sequencing) and growth in other areas, from gene editing to DNA nanotechnology, our reputation, expertise and understanding in nucleic acid chemistry, augmented by Biotage's global presence and expertise in separations and instrumentation, put the company in a strong position for further future growth.
Your partner for oligonucleotide synthesis.