US-based healthcare company Portola Pharmaceuticals has raised $89m in its latest round weeks after closing corporate venture backing from trade peer Biogen Idec yesterday.
Temasek, a Singapore state-backed investment company and Eastern Capital Limited, the family office of Kenneth Dart, chief executive of Styrofoam cup maker Dart Container, joined Portola’s $89m series D round as new investors, alongside previous backers.
In July 2008, Portola raised $60m in its series C extension round from existing and new investors, the latter including hedge fund DE Shaw and asset managers Adage Capital Management, BBT Capital Management/Apothecary Capital, Janus Capital Group and Pac-Link BioVentures. This followed $70m in May 2007’s C round from mutual fund managers Brookside Capital, AllianceBernstein, Teachers’ Private Capital (the private investment arm of Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan) and T Rowe Price, investment bank Goldman Sachs, the Industrial Bank of Taiwan’s IBTM venture capital subsidiary and venture capital firms CIDC, Abingworth, Alta Partners, Advanced Technology Ventures, Frazier Healthcare, MPM Capital, Prospect Ventures and Sutter Hill Ventures.
Following the C round, Portola had received $50m in payments from US-based drugs peer Merck & Co and, last month, Biogen Idec agreed to provide an upfront payment of $45m, which includes $36m in cash and $9m in Portola equity.
As part of the latter deal, Portola announced a global collaboration with Biogen Idec for an oral Syk inhibitor program targeting autoimmune and inflammatory diseases, including rheumatoid arthritis and systemic lupus erythematosus. However, the Merck deal fell through earlier this year leading Portola to raise the latest $89m to develop its anti-blood clotting drug, Betrixaban, from other investors.
William Lis, chief executive of Portola, said: "With the capital raised, Portola can independently complete a pivotal phase III Betrixaban trial with the potential for it to be the first oral Factor Xa inhibitor to the market for both hospital and post-discharge prevention of pulmonary embolism in acute medically ill patients.
"An estimated 426,000 hospitalisations and 180,000 deaths from pulmonary embolism occur annually in G7 [group of seven largest] nations, with the majority occurring in medical patients."