DBV Technologies, a France-based biotechnology company to combat food allergies, has raised $25.5m in its series C round from a group including UK and Nasdaq-listed drugs group Shire in its first corporate venturing deal.
The round was co-led by new investors InnoBio Fund and Lundbeckfond Ventures. InnoBio is a fund managed by venture capital (VC) firm CDC Entreprises and sponsored by the French state’s sovereign fund FSI and pharmaceutical companies, including Sanofi Aventis, GlaxoSmithKline, Roche, Novartis, Pfizer, Lilly, Ipsen, Takeda and Boehringer-Ingelheim. Lundbeckfond is the Denmark-based Lundbeck Foundation’s life sciences investment entity under Lundbeckfond Invest, which owns 70% of the shares of drugs company Lundbeck.
Also in the round as new investors were Shire and local VC ALTO Invest.
The round was completed by VCs Sofinnova Partners, Apax Partners, Cap Décisif, and Creagro and allergies company ALK Abello as repeat investors.
In January 2009, DBV raised €6m in its series B round with ALK-Abello investing €2m and returning investor Sofinnova Partners the remainder.
Sofinnova had three years earlier invested €7m as lead in DBV’s €12.3m series A round.
Founded in Paris in 2002 by two paediatric gastroenterologists and allergists, DBV has developed a worldwide patented technology for drug delivery that delivers proteins and peptides into the skin.
Pierre-Henri Benhamou, co-founder and chief executive of DBV, said: "Since there are no known treatments for food allergies, many children and their families live with the constant fear of ingesting a life-threatening food. Viaskin is designed to trigger the desired immune response while avoiding the risk of a systemic, life-threatening reaction."
Aelios Finance advised DBV on the C round.