Biotech company Oxford GlycoSciences has unveiled plans to raise £150m to develop new drugs.

The company, which unravels the proteins linked to diseases such as cancer and Alzheimer's, will offer shares to existing and new investors at the same time as applying for a listing on the technology-dominated US Nasdaq exchange.

Oxford GlycoSciences, which is creating 40 new jobs at its headquarters at Milton Park, near Abingdon, over the next year following the opening of its 6m new head office and factory, said the £150m would help pay for clinical trials of its medicine Vevesca, a treatment for Gaucher's disease.

The enzyme disorder affects an estimated 30,000 people worldwide and leads to a swelling of vital organs including the liver and spleen.

Oxford GlycoSciences, which completed the first phase of the trial earlier this year, hopes to market the product by the middle of 2002.

The company, which was floated by Oxford University in 1998, says the share offer will also sustain its drug discovery and research programmes, as well as paying for new technology.

The open offer could involve as many as 7.6 million shares, of which a possible 1.7 million shares will form part of the international offering.

Oxford GlycoScience has the world's leading "proteomics data factory" which can analyse the molecular structure of 2,000 samples a week from patients with illnesses such as cancer, Alzheimer's, schizophrenia, infections and inflammatory diseases.

Since most drugs are made from proteins, drug companies are eager to use the information. OGS has collaborations with Pfizer, Merck, Bayer and Pioneer HI-Bred/DuPont.