Symphogen, a Denmark-based developer of antibody therapeutics to treat cancer and disease, has raised €100m ($130m) in Europe’s largest medical venture round and broadly double its previous equity funding.
Novo, a $20bn quasi-corporate venturing investment company wholly owned by the Novo Nordisk Foundation, led the round, and was joined by local pension fund PKA as a new investor and venture capital firm Essex Woodlands Health Ventures.
Essex Woodlands, which previously led Symphogen’s €33m round in February 2009, and Novo provided 70% of the latest round.
In January 2007, Symphogen raised €5m from Netherlands-based venture capital fund Gilde Healthcare Partners to take its then total amount of money raised to $85m and its earlier investors included Japan’s Takeda, Scandinavian Life Science Venture, LD Pensions and Vaekstfonden, as well as Essex Woodlands and Novo.
Symphogen will use the €100m for its anti-cancer drugs, especially lead clinical oncology product Sym004, rather than its infectious disease portfolio (see product pipeline in graphic).
Kirsten Drejer, chief executive of Symphogen, said: "Our overall goal is to progress Symphogen’s early stage clinical oncology pipeline; to enhance our platform; and to move our preclinical oncology programs to proof-of-concept in humans. Our work in infectious diseases and our partnerships with Genentech and Meiji Seika Kaisha remain fully funded."
Goran Ando, vice-chairman of diabetes drugs company Novo Nordisk, in which Novo owns shares, and a senior adviser to Essex Woodlands, has become chairman of Symphogen with the latest round of funding.