Hong Kong-based cross-border healthcare investment firm Ally Bridge Group has completed investments in two European biopharmaceutical companies, Galenica AG of Switzerland and Nabriva of Austria and the U.S., further expanding the firm's global portfolio.
No Financial details were disclosed. These two investments follow Ally Bridge's previously deals privatizing China's WuXi PharmaTech and is investment in Tesaro, Inc., a U.S. oncology-focused biopharmaceutical company, and other global healthcare companies.
Galenica, through its subsidiary Vifor Pharma, provides iron supplements and therapeutics treating chronic kidney disease, a prevalent and steadily growing indication worldwide. The company, based in Bern, Switzerland, is expanding its franchise further into nephrology, and new areas such as cardiology, women's health and gastroenterology, from Europe to the U.S.
Nabriva is a NASDAQ-listed clinical-stage company developing next-generation antibiotics against bacterial infections and, particularly, drug-resistant bacteria, an alarming global health threat. The company operates in Vienna, Austria and Prussia, Pennsylvania in the U.S.
"These new investments, together with our existing position in Adaptimmune of the U.K., constitute (Ally Group's) core European life science portfolio, and are all representative of (our) focus on leading European companies with strong aspirations and capabilities in the U.S.," said Frank Yu, founder and CEO of Ally Bridge, in a statement.
"This Euro-U.S. trans-Atlantic value-creation theme has driven (our) continuing success with its European investments, which in the past included Pieris of Germany and the U.S., Cellectis of France and the U.S. and Medtech SA (acquired by Zimmer Biomet)," he added.
At the same time, Ally Bridge said that it had hired Mathieu Bigois, founder of the latest transaction's financial advisor Ponthieu Partners, as its European venture partner to help expand its life science investments in Europe and emerging markets.
Ally Bridge was founded Frank Yu, a former managing director of Goldman Sachs and Och-Ziff Capital, with approximately US$1.5 billion in assets under management.
In 2015, the firm completed a US$3.3 billion take-private deal of WuXi PharmaTech, a Chinese life science service provider. In 2016, it invested in Medtech SA, a surgical robotics company based in France. Medtech was acquired by global orthopedics giant Zimmer Biomet in 2016, several months after ABG's investment, the firm said without disclosing any further details.