Gimv et al. exit Covagen in trade sale

Gimv stated the sale has had a positive impact of €14.8m, or 58 cents per share, on its last published equity value at 30 June 2014.

Speaking to unquote", EdRip said it had generated slightly more than a 6x return on its investment. The GP was the second-largest shareholder and held a stake of around 20%.

At the time of the series-B investment in December last year, all the backers planned to stay with the company during the current trial. However, companies interested in Covagen offered highly attractive terms prompting the early sale.

Cilag identified the acquisition through the London-based accelerator Johnson & Johnson Innovation Centre, which facilitated the transaction.

Covagen said it will maintain a research presence in Zurich-Schlieren in Switzerland and will continue to focus on developing its Fynomer technology.

Previous funding
In November 2009, Covagen secured early-stage funding from Ventech, MP Healthcare Venture Management and Novartis Venture Fund, followed by €5m from EdRip in January 2010, according to unquote" data. Covagen was the eighth investment of BioDiscovery 3, a specialised life science investment fund managed by EdRip.

In November 2010, Seroba Kernel Life Sciences led a €4.8m (CHF 6.3m) series-A round for the company, with participation from the firm's four existing backers.

Gimv led a CHF 42m series-B funding round in December 2013, investing CHF 8.3m. The existing investors were joined by Ascent Biomedical Ventures.

In February this year, Baxter Ventures contributed a further €2.9m to the series-B round. The funding was earmarked for the clinical development of the company's FynomAb COVA322 product, which is being developed for use in the treatment of inflammatory diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis and psoriatic arthritis.

Covagen had raised a total of CHF 58.9m prior to its sale to Cilag.

Company
Founded in 2007 as a spinout from ETH Zurich, the Swiss Institute of Technology, Covagen develops multispecific protein therapeutics for the treatment of inflammatory diseases and cancer.

The company employs 26 staff.

People
Julian Bertschinger and Dragan Grabulovski are co-founders of Covagen. Bertschinger was the company's former CEO. Karl Nägler is a partner at Gimv's health and care platform and took the role of chairman of Covagen's board. Susan Dillon is global therapeutic area head at Janssen Research and Development. Gilles Nobecourt is a partner at EdRip and a member of Covagen's scientific advisory board.

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