Dozens of jobs are set to be lost after drugs firm British Biotech revealed it will close its Oxford base.

The company has set up a proposed merger with another pharmaceutical company, Vernalis, based at Winnersh, near Reading.

If shareholders approve, Biotech's offices at Garsington Road, Cowley, will close. All operations will shift to the Vernalis site and a total of 74 jobs will go

The exact number of people be made redundant out of Biotech's 35 remaining staff in Oxford has not been made clear, but some will relocate.

The proposed deal will mean the end of the British Biotech name. The combined company will be called Vernalis.

Twenty jobs were lost in Oxford in April when the company merged with RiboTargets, of Cambridge. Since 1997 the firm has seen its workforce shrink from nearly 400.

British Biotech finance director Tony Weir said: "What we are trying to build is a self-sustaining, competitive biotech business, and inevitably there will be some casualties.

"We have just under £60m in cash which puts us in a strong position when the two development portfolios are put together."

The companies will have a combined value of £90.9m, if the merger is approved by shareholders. Already 44 per cent of Vernalis shareholders have approved the deal but 50 per cent approval is required.

The drugs portfolio of the two firms will be headed by Frovatriptan -- a migraine treatment.

The combined company plans to maximise its potential in the United States and European markets and drive forward the best existing discovery and development programmes.

The executive chairman of British Biotech, Peter Fellner, and its chief executive, Simon Sturge, will take up the same positions within the combined firm.

British Bio-technology was founded as a drugs research company in Oxford in 1986.