Forbion Capital Partners, the leading Dutch Venture Capital firm investing in world-class healthcare technologies, sold PneumRx of its portfolio, to BTG plc, the UK-based specialist healthcare company for an initial cash consideration of €186M and up to €199M in performance-related future milestone payments.
PneumRx is a growing interventional pulmonology business which owns, manufactures and distributes the RePneu Coil System. This is a minimally invasive treatment for advanced emphysema and aims to enhance patients’ quality of life by improving lung function and exercise capacity. RePneu is sold in 11 EU countries including Germany, Switzerland, Italy and Spain and has a fully recruited US pivotal clinical trial currently underway. US approval is anticipated during 2016.
Forbion Capital Partners was the lead investor of PneumRx’ series C financing round of €26,7M in January of 2011. This transaction is yet another illustration of Forbion’s ability to identify companies with promising technologies and deliver attractive returns by a well-managed exit strategy.
Examples of other recent exits by Forbion portfolio companies include:
- Santaris Pharma was acquired by Roche in August 2014 for up to USD 450M – Forbion was the lead investor in the Series B round
- 2014 IPO of Argen-X at Brussels Euronext – Forbion was the lead investor in the Series A round
- 2014 IPO of Argos Pharmaceuticals at Nasdaq – Forbion was the lead investor in the Series D round
- 2014 IPO of UniQure at Nasdaq – Forbion were founders of the company and the largest shareholder at the time of the IPO
- CircuLite, Inc. sold to Heartware – Forbion were founders of the company and lead investor since 2004
- 2013 IPO of bluebird bio at Nasdaq – Forbion was one of its founding investors since the Series A restart in 2004 with Forbion partner Geert-Jan Mulder as Chairman of the company
- Transave to Insmed, Inc. in a reverse merger – Forbion co-led its Series B financing round
- BioVex sold to Amgen – exit value of up to USD 1 billion. Forbion was the largest investor as well as lead investor since 2005
- PanGenetics sold to Abbott – Forbion was lead investor of its series B financing round
The range and value of the exits achieved recently show the maturity of Forbion as a firm and of its portfolio. Since inception, Forbion has launched three main funds, two Co-Investment funds, and two JV funds with BioGeneration Ventures. As a result, Forbion currently manages well over €540M across five funds. In October of 2014, Forbion Capital Partners announced a first close of its new fund Forbion Capital Fund III, raising €92M for investing in drug, device and diagnostics companies that develop tomorrow’s technologies and products that will greatly improve the quality of patients’ lives.
Recent news are also full of Forbion’s portfolio companies. UniQure just put on the German market the first gene therapy drug for record price of €1,1M. Curetis, another Forbion’s portfolio company, closed a Series B financing round of €63.5M last week. It’s sure, Forbion is going to be a leader of Venture Capital in Europe!