Nasdaq-listed drugs company Amgen has agreed to buy for up to $1bn to provide an exit for the target’s investment consortium which contains Genechem Management, a venture firm originally backed by a forerunner to Shire Pharmaceuticals.
Amgen will pay $425m in cash and up to $575m in performance fees for Biovex, which is testing vaccines for cancer and genital herpes.
Venture capital firm Forbion Capital Partners, which span out from Netherlands-based bank ABN Amro in 2007, is Biovex’s largest shareholder.
Sander Slootweg, managing partner at Forbion and non-executive board member at Biovex, said: "We have been Biovex’s largest shareholder for several years, and have supported the company by leading and structuring its recent financing rounds. We are very pleased that Amgen, a clear leader in the biologics space, has recognized the potential of OncoVEX [the anti-cancer vaccine currently undergoing phase III trials] for the treatment of various solid tumour types."
BioVex has raised nearly $170m in equity and debt since spinning out of University College London in 1999, including a $70m series F round in 2009. Its investors include GeneChem, Avalon Ventures, Forbion, Morningside, Ventech, MVM Life Science Partners, Sectoral Asset Management, Ysios Capital Partners, Triathlon Medical Ventures, New Science Ventures, Credit Agricole Private Equity, Innoven Partners, Scottish Equity Partners and Harris and Harris Group.
An investor in the last round said despite the large amount raised the company only had a $50m pre-money valuation, which had given it a four-times return, and potentially a 10X if all the performance fees are paid.
In mid-2006, BioVex filed but then withdraw plans to raise as much as $45m in its flotation.