Needle-free drug delivery company Ocelus has secured almost £500,000 in a second round of funding from Finance Wales and the Welsh Assembly.

Needle-free drug delivery company Ocelus has secured almost £500,000 in a second round of funding from Finance Wales and the Welsh Assembly.

Newport-based Ocelus received £315,000 in equity investment from Finance Wales, the business support arm of the Welsh Assembly, as well as a grant of £147,000 from the Assembly’s Single Investment Fund.

Founder Andrew Kirby, the inventor of Ocelus’ technology, says, ‘With this funding, we are able to continue development on our system, and work with leading micro-engineering and pharmaceutical formulation companies from around the world to produce optimized prototypes for testing in human skin.’

The funding follows an investment of £100,000 in the company from the same sources in 2008.

Advisers on the deal included technical and commercial due diligence specialist PharmaVentures, intellectual property expert IP Pragmatics and law firms Hugh James Solicitors and Capital Law.