For immediate release
3 October 2014
Forbion Capital Partners Announces First Close of FCF III
Naarden, The Netherlands, October 3, 2014 – Forbion Capital Partners (Forbion) today announced that it has raised EUR 92m (USD 120m) in a first close of its new fund FCF III.
FCF III will invest in 12-15 companies, managed by Forbion’s partners Sander Slootweg, Martien van Osch, Sander van Deventer, Geert-Jan Mulder, Holger Reithinger, Christina Takke and Marco Boorsma. This team has worked together for over a decade and combines entrepreneurial, operational and financial skills with a strong background in biosciences and medicine, in both industry and academia.
FCF III is backed by both existing and new investors from Europe, Canada and the United States, including the EIF through its European Recovery Programme (ERP), LfA and Dutch Venture Initiative (DVI) facilities. The target fund size for FCF III is EUR 150- 200m.
The new fund will continue Forbion’s proven and successful strategy of investing in world-class companies developing innovative therapeutics, medical devices and (companion) diagnostics. The team at Forbion has consistently shown its ability to select, start and build winning companies in the EU and beyond, with groundbreaking therapies and technologies that truly represent the future of medicine. Through the team’s active involvement, Forbion has been able to contribute to its portfolio companies’ successes in providing both attractive financial returns to investors and by providing novel treatment options to patients, positively impacting their lives.
Recent examples of this strategy include Santaris Pharma, developing LNA-based medicines and sold this summer to Roche for up to USD 450m, and bluebird bio (BLUE), a leader in gene therapy that listed on NASDAQ last year. bluebird bio was co- founded by Forbion and is currently valued at over USD 1bn. Another example is BioVex, sold to Amgen (AMGN) for up to USD 1bn, based on the excitement of their oncolytic drugs for metastatic cancer.
“Early into this century of Biotech, we believe that mankind has only seen the beginnings of what the biotech revolution can and will contribute to our collective health and wellbeing. Many current, life-threatening diseases will become curable or at least manageable, because of breakthrough treatments such as cancer immunotherapy and gene therapies, spaces pioneered by Forbion in recent years,” commented Sander Slootweg, Managing Partner at the firm.
“These investments have for instance resulted in the first ever approved gene therapy product Glybera® by uniQure (QURE), co-founded by Forbion and listed on NASDAQ earlier this year and in the recent BLA filings of Amgen for TVEC®, acquired from BioVex, in both the US and Europe,” added Sander van Deventer, Managing Partner at Forbion.
Of the 56 companies the Forbion team has invested in since 1999, 30 have been exited by either trade sale or listing, yielding an IRR of over 30%, one of the strongest financial track records in the industry. Moreover, six of its companies have become so-called “unicorns” in that their valuations have reached USD 1bn or more.
Meanwhile, multiple drugs, devices and diagnostics developed by Forbion portfolio companies have reached the market, some with blockbuster potential. For example, Roche’s Gazyva®, approved last year, was originally acquired from Forbion portfolio company Glycart AG and is forecasted to sell several billions of USD per annum.
–Ends–
For further information please contact
Sander Slootweg
Forbion Capital Partners
+31 (0) 35 699 3015
Sander.Slootweg@forbion.com
Instinctif Partners (on behalf of Forbion)
Melanie Toyne Sewell / Robert Mayer
+44 20 7457 2020 / +49 89 3090 5189 13
forbion@collegehill.com
About Forbion Capital Partners
Forbion Capital Partners is a dedicated Life Sciences venture capital firm with offices in Naarden, The Netherlands, Munich, Germany and representation in Boston, US. Forbion invests in life sciences companies in drug discovery & development as well as medical device companies addressing substantial unmet medical needs. Forbion’s investment team of ten investment professionals has built an impressive performance track record since the late nineties with successful investments in Rhein Biotech, Crucell, Neutec, Glycart, Borean, Impella, Alantos, Acorda (ACOR), Fovea, Insmed (INSM), PanGenetics, Argenta Discovery, BioVex, Pathway Medical, CircuLite, bluebird bio (BLUE), uniQure (QURE), Argos (ARGS), arGEN-X (ARGX.BR) and Santaris. Forbion also operate a joint venture with BioGeneration Ventures, who manage two separate seed- and early stage funds focused on Benelux. Including the new fund
FCF III, Forbion manage EUR 540M (USD 700M) across 5 funds.
For more information, please visit www.forbion.com .
