Forbion et al. sell Santaris Pharma to Roche for $450m

The deal includes an up-front cash payment of $250m and an additional $200m in performance-based payments. 

Roche, maker of swine flu drug Tamiflu, will wholly acquire the company; the transaction marks a full exit for the investor group, consisiting of Sunstone, Gilde, Forbion, Global Life Science Ventures (GLSV), LD Pensions, Novo Nordisk and Seventure.

Sunstone managing partner Peter Benson told unquote" the GP's stake was 24%, and that it was expecting a very satisfying return on the deal.

The deal was brought about when the investor syndicate told Roche in April 2014 of plans to list Santaris by September, which spurred Roche's interest in acquiring the company, which it had partnered with since 2012.

Following the sale of the Copenhagen-based biopharmaceutical company, Roche plans to maintain Santaris's operations in Denmark, though the existing site will be renamed Roche Innovation Center Copenhagen.

Previous funding
Since Santaris was founded in 2003, it has gone through a round of early-stage funding and three rounds of expansion fundraising, according to unquote" data.

In 2005, the company received €4.4m in interim funding from a consortium of investors, including BankInvest, Novo, LD Pension, InnovationsKapital, Dansk Kapitalanlæg and Dansk Erhvervsinvestering. Management retained a 10% stake in the business.

The following year, Forbion, GLSV, Seventure, Teknoinvest and Vækstfonden provided around 50% of a €40m seed round to join the existing investors, who provided the remaining capital.

Gilde provided $7.5m for a stake in Santaris in 2008 through a €20.4m series-C, with existing shareholders and management injecting the remaining slice.

Santaris most recently raised capital in 2012, when Sunstone invested alongside previous investors and the management team, through $12m of convertible bonds.

Company
Based in Copenhagen and with an office in San Diego, Santaris was created in 2003 by a merger between Cureon and Pantheco. The biopharmaceutical company develops RNA-targeted medicines through its proprietary Locked Nucleic Acid platform.

People
Managing partners Sander Slootweg and Martien van Osch worked on the deal for Forbion. J Donald deBethizy is president and CEO of Santaris.

• Tweet  
• Facebook  
• LinkedIn  
• Google plus  
• Send to  

• Topics
• Exits
• Nordics
• Healthcare
• Denmark
• Sunstone Capital A/S
• Global Life Science Ventures
• Seventure (SPEF)
• Dansk Kapitalanlaeg
• InnovationsKapital Management - Gothenburg