France-based Kurma Partners SA announced the final closing of a new fund on 23 April to support start-up companies, largely in Europe, which show promise of developing medicines for serious or incurable diseases. The final close of Biofund IV, at €215 million, is about a third higher than the size of Biofund III, its predecessor, and was supported by several large institutions. They include the Australian pharmaceutical company CSL Ltd, the European Investment Fund, and Bpifrance, the French national investment bank.
In a prepared statement, Thierry Laugel and Rémi Droller, managing partners of Kurma said the closing “reflects our investors’ long-standing trust in the model we have built over the past 15 years: an integrated ecosystem that bridges the gap between scientific discovery and venture capital financing.”
Founded in 2009, the Kurma team currently consists of 25 professionals, including 10 partners which operate out of offices in Paris and Munich. With the closing of Biofund IV, the group has total assets under management of €1 billion. To date, Biofund IV has made 11 investments. The goal is to complete around 20. The new investees include SciRhom GmbH in Germany which is working with a professor in the US to develop humanised antibodies against iRhom2, a protein that acts as a regulator of the enzyme TACE. The antibodies have been shown to inhibit TACE in immune cells, thereby offering protection against autoimmune diseases. Other investees include companies developing products for cancer, depression and cardiovascular diseases. Nuevocor Pte Ltd, a preclinical biotech company based in Singapore, is exploring potential medicines within the cardiovascular gene therapy sector.
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