Forbion Wins “VC Firm of the Year” at the LSX’s LifeStars Awards

NAARDEN, The Netherlands & MUNICH–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Forbion, a leading European life sciences venture capital firm, today announced that it has won “VC firm of the Year” at the LSX Lifestars Awards 2019. Forbion was competing for the award together with seven other finalists.

Accepting the awards at last night’s ceremony at the Honourable Artillery Company in London, Marco Boorsma, General Partner at Forbion said: “It is a privilege to receive this award on behalf of the Forbion team, voted for by a highly experienced judging panel from the life sciences community. Last year was a tremendous year for Forbion. We launched a new fund and led and co-led numerous investments in promising companies. Moreover, several of our portfolio companies completed initial public offerings on NASDAQ and two were acquired, most recently we sold Promedior to Roche for up to $1.4B. It is a great honour to be recognised as having made a positive impact by helping to build life sciences companies which have the potential to transform patient’s lives.”

In October 2018, Forbion launched its €360m Forbion IV fund, which is investing in biopharma, building on its track record of creating high-return, high-impact businesses, focused around exciting new science, proven management teams or assets sourced from the pharmaceutical industry. Like its predecessor fund, Forbion IV primarily focuses on opportunities in the EU, including the UK, with the remainder of the Fund targeting opportunities mostly in North America.

The investment team currently manages over €1bn across ten closed end funds and has an impressive track record since the late nineties with successful investments in over 60 companies. Over the last year Forbion has led several financings including a Series B financing round of €40M in Inflazome, Series C financing round of €17M in Omeicos, and co-led a Series A round of €48.23M in Gotham Therapeutics. Forbion also participated in a £100M financing of Achilles Therapeutics, a €116M financing of AM-Pharma as well as a $50M series A financing round in Dyne Therapeutics.

In early 2019, two of Forbion’s portfolio companies, Milestone Pharmaceuticals Inc. and Vienna-based HOOKIPA Pharma Inc. successfully listed on the NASDAQ Stock Exchange. HOOKIPA raised around $84M, and Milestone Pharma, raised around $95M. Replimune and uniQure completed significant follow-on financings on Nasdaq.

Additionally, during the last year, Forbion strengthened its team with the appointments of Carlo Incerti, M.D. and John Kastelein, both as Operating Partner. Carlo has over three decades of experience in the biopharmaceutical industry, most recently as Chief Medical Officer at Sanofi Genzyme. John is one of the most recognized and cited Key Opinion Leaders in the Cardiovascular/Metabolic disease space and co-founder of companies like uniQure, Dezima and Xenon.

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Notes for Editors:

About Forbion

Forbion is a dedicated life sciences venture capital firm with offices in The Netherlands, Germany and Singapore. Forbion invests in life sciences companies that are active in the (bio-) pharmaceutical space. Forbion’s investment team has built an impressive performance track record since the late nineties with successful investments in over 60 companies. Forbion manages well over EUR 1 billion across ten funds.

Forbion is a signatory to the United Nations Principles for Responsible Investment. Besides financial objectives, Forbion selects investments that will positively affect health and well-being of patients. Its investors include the EIF, through its European Recovery Programme (ERP), LfA, Dutch Venture Initiative (DVI) facilities and AMUF facilities and the KFW through the ERP – Venture Capital Fondsfinanzierung facility. Forbion operates a joint venture with BGV, the manager of seed and early stage funds focused on Benelux and Germany. For more information, please visit: www.forbion.com.

Contacts

Forbion contact:
Sander Slootweg, Managing Partner

P: +31 (0) 35 699 30 00

E: [email protected]

Media contact:
Instinctif Partners

Melanie Toyne-Sewell/Ashley Tapp/Kiki Zaccagnini

P: +44 (0) 20 7457 2020

E: [email protected]