Welcome to Seroba's newsletter. In this issue we share news about some of the exciting things happening in our portfolio with a focus on exits and funding developments.
Raising a Storm!
Seroba has led a £14m investment into STORM Therapeutics, a leading biotech company focused on small molecule therapies modulating RNA modifying enzymes.
This investment raises STORM’s Series A to a total of £30m. The funds will enable STORM to harness the power of RNA epigenetics to broaden its drug discovery pipeline and accelerate additional programmes towards the clinic.
This important new area of biology holds the potential to address a variety of disorders in different therapeutic areas. Read more
Precision Cancer Killers
Seroba’s portfolio company, Fusion, is utilizing the advantages of alpha medical isotopes to develop targeted cancer therapeutics. Fusion uses targeting molecules, such as antibodies, armed with these potent medical isotopes to precisely and effectively kill cancer cells. Since alpha particles travel only a short distance, they localize the radiation to the tumour, sparing healthy normal tissue nearby.
In April Seroba, and other existing Fusion investors, joined new investor, Orbimed, in a $105 million Series B financing. This financing allows Fusion to progress its clinical and partnering strategies around its lead drug candidate and pipeline platform to exploit the unique advantages of its technology. The company recently started clinical testing of its lead product. Read more
Labcyte Makes its Own Waves!
Labcyte was acquired in January by Beckman Coulter Life Sciences, part of the larger Danaher Corporation which generates approximately $6.5 billion in annual revenue. Labcyte is best known for its Echo® acoustic droplet ejection technology, which uses sound waves to transfer tiny amounts of liquid with unequalled speed and accuracy. Read more
Let's Restore the Floor - State-side
Seroba took part in a €28 million investment into Atlantic Therapeutics in Q1 following FDA approval for its INNOVO® therapy device to treat incontinence across the United States.
The Urology Care Foundation in the U.S. estimates that one-third of American females suffer with stress urinary incontinence, so this new investment is well-timed to enable this Irish company to expand its sales and marketing of INNOVO® shorts across the USA. Read more
Swirling to an Exit
Veryan’s BioMimics 3D peripheral vascular stent received U.S. FDA approval in October last year and by Christmas it had been acquired by Otsuka Medical Devices.
Following the acquisition, Veryan and Otsuka began to collaborate in further developing Swirling Flow® stents for use in the treatment of vascular disease. As part of the acquisition, Veryan’s operations in Galway, Ireland, will be retained and expanded by Otsuka Medical Devices and will play a key role in the continued development of the Swirling Flow® technology. Read more
A Bypass Operation in Just Two Hours?
PQ Bypass announced a $60 Million financing to advance its therapeutic approach to Peripheral Arterial Disease. Seroba and other existing investors took part in the fund raise which was led by new investor, Deerfield. The funds will support a pivotal trial of the novel DETOUR System designed for patients with tough to treat long blockages in leg arteries. Read more
The American TV station KOB4 in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where the first ground-breaking procedure took place, were so taken by the PQ Bypass clinical trials that they featured the story on their daily news. You can watch the KOB4 News Feature here.
Dublin Welcomes Funds Worth €6 Billion
We were delighted to see many familiar faces from VC firms and Corporates from across the globe at the 2019 Medtech Strategist Innovation Summit in Dublin in April. Seroba were founding sponsors of the event when it first took place in Ireland back in 2013. This was Seroba's 7th year as Platinum Sponsor of the conference and it was great to see that the number of attendees has grown yet again.
There were some fantastic presentations from innovative medtech start-up companies and excellent panel discussions too. We hope to see you back in Dublin next year (April 21–23 2020), so save the date now. If you couldn’t make the conference this year, watch this 1-min video of highlights here.
Meet the Seroba Team Out and About
Meet us at these upcoming events:
- Alan, Jennifer and Bruno are at BioEquity Europe 2019 in Barcelona from May 19-22.
- Daniel will be at EuroPCR (Interventional Cardiovascular Medicine) in Paris, May 21-24.
- Andrew will be at Invest Europe's CFO Conference in Valencia, Spain on June 11-12.
- Bruno will be at the Tech Tour HTS Healthtech summit in Lausanne on June 24-26.