Abingworth Clinical Co-Development Fund 2 closes on $582m

The fund exceeded its target of $350m.

ACCD 2 will invest alongside Abingworth Bioventures 8 (ABV 8), which recently held a final close on $465m, surpassing its $375m target.

The two vehicles aim to support the growth of life sciences companies across the US, the UK and continental Europe, targeting businesses that are developing innovative therapeutics with potential to significantly improve human health.

"This new Clinical Co-Development Fund, combined with our $465m Abingworth Bioventures 8 fund, brings new funds closed by Abingworth in 2021 to more than $1bn," said Tim Haines, chair and managing partner at Abingworth. "With ABV 8 primarily targeting company creation and development-stage opportunities, ACCD 2 invests alongside our venture funds to finance late-stage co-development opportunities with the potential to bring new medicines to patients in a reduced time frame. Our investments in this strategy, combined with our venture investments, have contributed to 19 new medicines gaining FDA approval in the last eight years."

Abingworth pioneered the clinical co-development investment strategy in 2009, investing initially via its venture funds and then alongside the first dedicated fund, Abingworth Clinical Co-Development Fund (ACCD 1), which launched in 2016.

As part of this new fund close, James Cornwall has joined Abingworth as partner in charge of business development for clinical co-development deals. He has 25 years of industry experience in the pharmaceuticals and contract research organisation (CRO) sectors, including roles in clinical research and corporate development. In addition, David Simmons, chair and CEO of CRO business PPD, has been appointed as a senior adviser to Abingworth focusing on its clinical co-development strategy.

Asante Capital Group and Wise Capital acted as global and regional placement advisers for ACCD 2, respectively. Goodwin Procter acted as legal counsel.

Established in 1973, Abingworth has offices in Menlo Park (California), Boston (Massachusetts) and London, UK. Since inception, the firm has invested in 170 life sciences companies, leading to 44 mergers and acquisitions, and 69 IPOs.

Investors
ACCD 2's LP base comprises new international investors and existing backers, including asset managers, endowments, family offices, foundations, healthcare corporations, pension plans and sovereign wealth funds.

LPs in the fund are from the US, Europe, the Middle East and Asia.

PPD, an American CRO providing drug development, laboratory and lifecycle management services, is among the investors that have backed the fund.

Investments
ACCD 2 provides financing for the development of late-stage clinical programmes of pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies.

It invests directly in late-stage product financing opportunities, as well as through its co-development portfolio companies Avillion in the UK and SFJ Pharmaceuticals in the US. SFJ and Avillion finance and facilitate clinical trial execution, using their operational expertise to increase the speed and quality of the trials. They incur all the clinical and regulatory risk and receive a pre-negotiated return once the drug is approved.

To date, Abingworth has made 11 investments in co-development opportunities through Avillion and SFJ. Of the seven that have been completed, six resulted in pre-negotiated pay-outs to the fund and five resulted in FDA drug approvals. Partnerships with AstraZeneca, Apellis Pharmaceuticals, Nektar Therapeutics and PhaseBio Pharmaceuticals are also ongoing.

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