Gene&Cell Therapy >> Invivo preps launch for €100M fund with an emphasis on
advanced therapies: Invivo is targeting €100 million ($108.7 million) for its third fund, with an eye on European early-stage biotechs with advanced therapies such as cell therapy, gene therapy and synthetic biology.
The Barcelona-based VC has helped steer some notable exits for its portfolio companies, including Genfit’s 2022 acquisition of Swiss orphan drug company Versantis for CHF40 million upfront and Vifor Pharma’s 2021 purchase of Palma, Spain-based cardio-renal company Sanifit Therapeutics for €205 million upfront.
Its latest fund, dubbed Invivo Ventures III, is supported by a majority of private investors and some institutional investors, according to a Tuesday release. Notable backers of Invivo’s previous two funds include the European Investment Fund, the Catalan Finance Institute, the Valencia Institute of Finance and the Barcelona City Council.
“The repeating rate of our current base of limited partners in our third fund has been astonishing — I would say it’s almost 100% with one or two slight exceptions that will consider injecting capital in our second closing [of the third fund],” managing partner Luis Pareras told Endpoints News in an interview.
Invivo is looking to invest in advanced therapies. “We are very interested in RNA therapies. We are very interested in cell therapies for solid tumors, especially CARs, and not only [those based on] T cells but other cells as well,” Pareras noted. As for gene therapies, “we’re trying to move away from viral vectors and go into non-viral vector [approaches] because we believe they belong to the future of medicine,” he added.
Besides investments in seed, preclinical-stage and Series A biotechs, Invivo is also involved in company creation. Pareras said the VC has established companies “just by reading a paper,” speaking with scientists and institutions behind the research and then building the team from there.
The VC’s geographic scope covers the entirety of Europe, with more than half of the companies in its current portfolio composed of Spanish companies. Biotechs in its current portfolio include Valencia, Spain-headquartered microRNA outfit ARTHEx Biotech and infectious disease-focused Telum Therapeutics, which has offices in New York and near Pamplona, Spain.
On the Spanish biotech ecosystem, Pareras noted the funds in the country are a “bit more immature” than their counterparts in Northern Europe but the quality of research and scientists in the country is “really improving.”
“The primal valuations [for Spanish biotechs] are not at the same level as in the rest of Europe, so we perceive that as an opportunity in itself,” Pareras said. #lucidquest #genetherapy #celltherapy
