Gimv et al. exit listed Prosensa

Ellie Pullen
25 November 2014

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Prosensa, a Dutch biotech that listed on the Nasdaq in July 2013, has been acquired by BioMarin Pharmaceutical, resulting in an exit for its venture capital backers.

Gimv has reaped a total return of 4.6x its historical investment cost in Prosensa through the sale. As of February 2014, the GP held a 7.29% stake in the company.

Prosensa has agreed to be acquired by BioMarin Pharmaceutical, a US Nasdaq-listed business, in a deal that values Prosensa's stock at $680m. The total deal size sits at $840m.

At the time of writing, Prosensa had a market-cap of $671.5m.

The acquisition by BioMarin results in an exit for Prosensa's venture capital backers: Gimv, Life Sciences Partners (LSP), Abingworth Management, Idinvest Partners, Medsciences Capital and New Enterprise Associates (NEA).

As of February this year, NEA was the company's biggest single shareholder with an 18% stake, while LSP and Abingworth each held a 17.3% stake, Idinvest owned 7.3% and Medsciences held 5.5%.

Prosensa listed on the Nasdaq in July last year with a market-cap of $408m. The company raised $78m in its IPO; shares began trading on the stock exchange at $20 each under the ticker "RNA".

Previous funding
In January 2007, Prosensa received €13.5m in its series-A round from LSP, Medsciences and Abingworth via its Abingworth Bioventures IV fund.

This was followed by a second €18m round in December 2008 from the three previous backers as well as new investors Gimv and Idinvest. Gimv committed €4.25m to the round.

In January 2012, NEA led a €23m round in which all existing investors injected fresh capital into the company.

Company
Founded in 2002 and headquartered in Leiden, Prosensa focuses its efforts on the development of treatments for neuromuscular and neurodegenerative disorders such as DMD, myotonic dystrophy and Huntington's disease.

The company generated €8.9m in revenues last year, up from the €7.8m recorded in 2012. It employs 85 staff.

People
Hans Schikan is the CEO of Prosensa. Jean-Jacques Bienaimé is the CEO of BioMarin.