London, United Kingdom (CU)_ LSP stated in November 2021 that it has collected €850 million for LSP 7 and that it wishes to partner with EQT, which is one of the major European and a top-ten private equity companies worldwide. René Kuijten, managing partner of LSP and incoming chief of EQT Life Sciences, expressed delight over the collaboration. He said, ”Just one day after the announcement of our partnership with EQT, a large investor decided to pursue a €150m investment in LSP 7, bringing the fund straight to the maximum size (hard cap) of EUR 1 billion. This investment immediately validates a key rationale for joining EQT: with EQT, we expect that we will be able to raise large funds much faster, serving the life sciences in Europe even better than before”.
The fund, which is anticipated to close in the first quarter of 2022 and which will be managed by the renamed EQT Life Sciences, will be invested in firms researching and developing innovative medical treatments and medical technologies, with the goal of ensuring that their scientific breakthroughs benefit people. LSP 7 is funded by five pharmaceutical corporations, of which four firms are from Asia and one from the United States.
The organization intends to invest the funds in about 15-20 startups that are researching novel medicines and medical devices. Four investments have been finalized so far: Evommune in the field of dermatology and immunology, Egle Therapeutics in the field of oncology and autoimmune illnesses, Hotspot in the field of autoimmune diseases, uncommon diseases, and oncology, and an unrevealed radiotherapy firm.
The European Council unveiled the European Scale-up Initiative a few days back, which would offer €10 billion in funding to late-stage technological enterprises in order to attain EU technology sovereignty. According to experts, around a third of the funds will be invested in Life Sciences start-ups in the growth phase of development. The goal is to establish ten to twenty pan-European funds with a combined value of more than €1 billion. The European Tech Champions Initiative (ETCI) will be the focal point of this pan-European scale-up initiative. It will be managed and overseen by the European Investment Fund (EIF), which is a subsidiary of the European Investment Bank (EIB).
Following the EIB and EIF’s initial contribution of €500 million, Germany and France have announced €1 billion each to the multi-investor fund which provides assistance in the formation of a European ecosystem for late-stage biotech, medtech, and digital champions that leverages additional capital from private investors.
