Forbion et al. in $196m round for NewAmsterdam Pharma
Forbion, Morningside Ventures and Ascendant BioCapital have led a $196m series-A funding round for Dutch clinical-stage biotechnology company NewAmsterdam Pharma (NAP).
The round also saw participation from BVF Partners, Life Sciences Partners (LSP), Kaiser Foundation Hospitals, Population Health Partners, Medpace, GL Capital, JVC Investment Partners, Presight Capital Janus Henderson Investors and entrepreneur Peter Thiel.
Forbion is currently investing via its fifth fund, dedicated to early-stage healthcare companies. The vehicle closed on its hard-cap of €460m in December 2020, exceeding its €375m target.
LSP took part in this funding round through its recently launched LSP Dementia Fund, which has collected €50m so far and expects to raise total capital of €150m.
Following the deal, Morningside's Jason Dinges and Ascendant's Gaurav Gupta will join the company's board of directors.
NAP intends to use the fresh capital to finance the full phase-III development of its obicetrapib drug, a cholesteryl ester transfer protein (CETP) inhibitor for patients who are not well-controlled on statins. The company expects to complete phase-IIb clinical trials for obicetrapib in Q2 2021 and initiate phase-III clinical trials in Q4 2021.
Previous funding
NAP raised around €20m in seed funding from Dutch venture capital firm Forbion in 2019.
Company
Established in 2019 and based in Naarden, NewAmsterdam Pharma is a clinical-stage company focused on the research and development of transformative therapies for cardio-metabolic diseases.
Its mission is to treat high-cardiovascular-risk patients for whom traditional therapies have been unsuccessful or not tolerated.
In April 2020, NewAmsterdam acquired Dezima Pharma from Amgen, including all rights for obicetrapib (TA-8995), a novel cholesteryl ester transfer protein inhibitor.
People
NewAmsterdam Pharma – Michael Davidson (CEO).
Morningside Ventures – Jason Dinges (partner).
Ascendant BioCapital – Gaurav Gupta (managing director).
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