Advent, Sunstone et al. in $60m round for F2G

Alice Tchernookova
20 June 2016

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UK antifungal pharmaceutical company F2G has raised $60m funding in a round led by Sectoral Asset Management.

The round includes capital from new investors Novo, Aisling Capital and Brace Pharma Capital.

Previous investors also took part, including Advent Life Sciences, Novartis Venture Fund, Sunstone Capital and Merifin Capital.

With the new financing, F2G plans to advance its lead compound, F901318 – a clinical-stage candidate for the treatment of invasive aspergillosis and other serious mould infections – and to further develop other earlier-stage assets in its pipeline.

Dr Maha Katabi, private equity partner at Sectoral Asset Management and Dr Martin Edwards, senior partner at Novo, will join the F2G board of directors.

Previous funding
In September 2002, BankInvest Biomedical Ventures led a £4.3m first round of funding for F2G. BankInvest provided £3m of the total from its Biomedical Venture Fund III, Merifin supplied £800,000 and the balance was provided by a small number of private investors.

In August 2003, a second funding round was provided by BankInvest and Merifin; the same investors injected an extra €4.52m in July 2004.

In March 2006, a €7.35m round involved BankInvest again, as well as Astellas Venture Management. In August 2008, BankInvest led an €8.01m round alongside minority investors Astellas and Merifin.

Then, in September 2012, Advent (via its Advent Life Sciences fund), Novartis, Sunstone, Merifin, K Nominees and Astellas invested a combined $30m (€23.91m) in an equity financing round.

Company
F2G is a Manchester-based biotech company focused on the discovery and development of therapies to treat life-threatening invasive fungal infections. It has mainly discovered and developed a new class of antifungal agents called the orotomides.

Established in 1998, F2G was formerly known as Functional Fungal Genomics.

People
Sectoral Asset Management – Dr Maha Katabi (private equity partner).
Novo – Dr Martin Edwards (senior partner).