Forbion, a European life sciences venture capital firm, announced today that it had closed its Forbion Growth Opportunities Fund at $208 million.
Forbion, a European life sciences venture capital firm, announced today that it had closed its Forbion Growth Opportunities Fund at $208 million. Existing investors including Pantheon, KfW Capital and the European Investment Fund contributed to the financing, which will go toward late-stage investments.
Specifically, Forbion is looking toward European biotech companies that are developing novel therapies for areas of high medical need. This funding will target the market by providing private growth capital for mature clinical development assets and pre-IPO funding to companies looking to pursue a public listing. In addition, it will support existing, under-valued public companies, according to Forbion.
“The market for late-stage, private European life sciences investments is already sizable at EUR 2 billion per annum and rapidly growing,” said Sander Slootweg, Managing Partner and co-founder of Forbion. “Despite the de-risked nature of the late-stage clinical assets in these companies, this market segment is still underserved. As a result, many companies and assets stall in late-stage development, due to a lack of specific funding. With our dedicated Growth Fund and specialized team, we are well-positioned to optimally exploit this opportunity and ensure that new, impactful treatments and therapies will make their way to patients and doctors.”
Forbion has led the first institutional rounds of several leading biotech companies in Europe, including Argenx, Uniqure, and Promedior. Forbion’s investment team has made more than 66 investments in both the European Union and North America.
“We will be looking to partner with world-class European companies and entrepreneurs to provide both capital and expertise, building the next generation of successful European Life Sciences companies,” said Dirk Kersten, General Partner.
In June, Forbion announced that it had led a $62.5 million Series A financing round for Prilenia Therapeutics, a clinical stage biotech company with a focus on neurodegenerative and neurodevelopmental disorders. The funding went toward launching Prilenia’s Huntington Disease (HD) and Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) late-stage clinical trials.
Specifically, Prilenia is looking into the registration of pridopidine for the treatment of HD and ALS. The highly selective sigma-1 receptor agonist is believed to help early HD patients maintain functional capability, as measured by the Total Functional Capacity score.
“We are convinced that pridopidine has the potential to seriously impact these intractable diseases,” said Geert Jan Mulder, MD, Managing Partner and co-founder at Forbion, at the time of the announcement. “The more we have scrutinized the program, the more excited we have become. We look forward to continuing to work with Prilenia’s outstanding management team, as well as the new and existing investors to help drive it to success.”
Forbion also helped lead a $40 million Series B financing round for NorthSea Therapeutics B.V. back in January. With this funding, the Dutch biotech company intends to progress its Structural Engineered Fatty Acids (SEFA) development pipeline.
Icosabutate is NorthSea’s lead product. It is a structurally designed fatty acid that regulates pathways involved in hepatic lipids, inflammation and fibrosis. Back in September 2019, the company announced that it had dosed its first patient in its Phase 2b dose ranging ICONA study, and stated that about 30 clinical trial sites had been initiated in the U.S.
NorthSea currently has three arms of its SEFA program in motion, which are exploring treatments for Parenteral Nutrition-Associated Liver Disease, dyslipidemia, and Non-alcoholic Steatohepatitis. Novo Seeds, New Science Ventures and BioGeneration Ventures participated with Forbion in the funding round back in January.
