A company aiming to create new medicines from plants has raised 3.6m from investors, writes Maggie Hartford.

Oxford Natural Products, based in St Giles, is aiming to float on the stock market in the next 18 months.

It is developing a multiple sclerosis treatment from cannabis, which would probably be taken as a suppository.

Another of its products is a dietary supplement rich in phyto-oestrogens, hormones believed to protect the body from breast and other cancers.

The 3.6m comes from the SAM Sustainability Group, based in Zurich and from the Gilde Europe Food and Agribusiness Fund, as well as private investors.

ONP says it will now be able to speed up development of its treatments, based on plants from throughout the globe which have a long history of being used for medicinal purposes. It will also use the money to commercialise its Total Quality Profiling technology, which analyses all the ingredients of plant-based medicines.

Acceptance of herbal medicines in the West has been hampered by the fact that their key ingredients vary from plant to plant, so that they cannot easily be standardised and compared to conventional treatments. Chief executive Christian Hoyer Millar said: "We are particularly delighted to close our funding round with with investment from SAM.

"This independent company is one of Europe's leading asset managers specialising in sustainability."

Earlier this year, ONP set up subsidiaries in Japan and Singapore.