Pfizer has agreed to buy the remaining shares in US-based healthcare startup Bamboo Therapeutics, seven months after investing $43m for a 22% stake.
Pfizer invested in Bamboo in the first quarter of 2016 and has agreed to pay $150m upfront and another $645m in potential milestone payments.
The other main participant in Bamboo’s $49.5m series A round was US nonprofit organisationCureDuchenne, which invested $1.5m through its impact venturing unit CureDuchenne Ventures, run by Jak Knowles, according to news provider Women’s PE Briefs.
Bamboo was formed to advance the work of Richard Jude Samulski, the director of the Gene Therapy Center at the University of North Carolina.
CureDuchenne had previously backed Prosensa, a developer of therapeutics for genetic disorders. Prosensa went public in 2013 and was later acquired by publicly traded BioMarin Pharmaceutical, Myotherix and RASRx.