Global Life Science Ventures — Investing in the life sciences

Global Life Science Ventures (GLSV) was a leading, independent venture capital fund focusing exclusively on the life sciences. GLSV was dedicated to supporting early-stage groups, originating from universities, scientific institutions or industry. The fund also invested in selected later stage companies, including buy-outs. For this purpose, GLSV provided finance, advice and access to expertise and networks. The group advised and managed funds totaling more than € 200 million. With offices in Germany and Switzerland, GLSV acted as one team with a global perspective.
The first fund started its activities in 1996 and invested in 18 companies. The second fund GLSV II started in 2001 and invested in 18 companies primarily in Europe and the US. After termination of the investment period, the fund exited the remaining assets in 2015 and is in liquidation.

Currenty, no new investments are being sought.

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Portfolio Companies




Agendia B. V. is a phamacogenomics and diagnostics company that uses microarray-based gene expression profiling to predict disease progression or treatment outcome in various cancer indications. Their lead product is a prognostic breast cancer test differentiating primary tumour patients that are at risk to develop metastasis. The company also offers high-end profiling and clinical trial stratification services to selected corporate customers.
Website: www.agendia.com
 



Nabriva Therapeutics GmbH, a specialist antibiotic research and development company has been launched beginning 2006, as a spin-off from Sandoz GmbH. Nabriva is based in Vienna, Austria, and focuses on the development of small molecule antibiotics for use in community and hospital infections. Dramatically increasing antibiotic resistance among many bacterial pathogens illustrates the urgent medical need for novel antibiotics. Nabriva’s product portfolio addresses this need by developing antibacterials which overcome any known mechanism of antibiotic resistance. Currently, Nabriva develops three late preclinical projects, one thereof designed for the oral treatment of respiratory tract infections. Website: www.nabriva.com



Pieris AG is a biopharmaceutical company engaged in the discovery and development of Anticalins® for the diagnosis and treatment of life-threatening human disorders. Exploiting extensive know-how in protein engineering as part of a broad intellectual property portfolio, the Company applies a balanced risk business model to the development of its Anticalin® candidates. Recognizing the enormous market potential of protein-based drugs, Pieris is committed to becoming an integrated drug discovery and development company.
Website: www.pieris-ag.com 


  acquired by Pixium shareholders in March 2014

Pixium Vision has acquired, in an all-share deal, the assets of Intelligent Medical Implant GmbH in May 2012, including a retinal implant technology that appears to be highly complementary to Pixium’s technologies. The company is developing innovative retinal implant systems for patients who have lost their sight, with the intention of restoring their vision and enabling them to lead more independent lives. Pixium intends to harness the rapid advances being made in neural processing, micro-electronics and computing, to develop retinal implant systems for blind people.
Website: www.pixium-vision.com 

 

  acquired by Roche in September 2014 

Santaris Pharma A/S is a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company developing next generation RNA-silencing drugs for the treatment of cancer and metabolic diseases. The company, which was created in May 2003 through the merger of Cureon A/S and Pantheco A/S, owns the exclusive worldwide rights to the use of locked-nucleic acids (LNA) in pharmaceuticals. Santaris Pharma is using LNA to make novel, highly potent and stable RNA Antagonists. Such drugs have the potential to transform the field of RNA-targeted therapeutics, making specific and effective gene silencing a reality in human medicine. If this potential is realised, even in part, it should be possible to design new drugs to treat a wide variety of human diseases by switching off the expression of harmful genes.
Website: www.santaris.com
 

   

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Former investments
which are fully exited: e.g. post IPO or M&A

 

  Lead-Product acquired by Abbott in May 2012

Action Pharma A/S is a Danish biotech company dedicated to the discovery and development of novel drugs with significant therapeutic improvement within inadequately treated cardiovascular diseases and diabetes. The core therapeutic focus of the company is obesity, Type 2 diabetes, inflammatory diseases, post-surgical organ damage and organ protection in severe cardiovascular indications such as myocardial infarction. The main strategy is to bring a pipeline of 7 drug candidates rapidly further into late stage clinical trials for subsequent partnering.
 

  

Artemis Pharmaceuticals GmbH
is a leading genetics and functional genomics company that uses the vertebrate genetic model organisms zebrafish and mouse to identify and functionally validate novel genes in vivo. These genes can be used as novel screening targets, or as the basis for secreted proteins in clinically and commercially relevant diseases.
Website: www.artemis-pharmaceuticals.de
 



Coapt Systems, Inc. is a Palo Alto based company that designs, develops, manufactures, and markets bio absorbable implants specifically to provide surgeons with the next generation of soft tissue fixation technology. They have developed a breakthrough platform technology for soft tissue fixation that enables surgeons to reduce operating time, facilitate minimally invasive procedures, minimize procedural complexity, and achieve improved surgical outcomes. They apply their patented technology platforms to surgical procedures that require accurate soft tissue fixation either to apposing soft tissue or to bone.

 



Coley Pharmaceutical Group, Inc. discovers and develops novel drugs based on CpG oligonucleotides (CpG oligos or CpG molecules). These drug candidates activate the innate and adaptive immune systems to fight diseases including cancer, infectious diseases, asthma and allergy.
 

 



Cyberkinetics Neurotechnology Systems, Inc. is active in the emerging field of neurotechnology. Founded in 2001, the company is developing innovative devices for the treatment of nervous system dysfunction by combining recent advances in neuroscience, computer science and engineering. Cyberkinetics’ proprietary neurotechnology platform includes implantable devices that have the potential to control movement or communication via other external devices. The company’s brain-computer interfaces have a broad potential not only for paralyzed or physically impaired humans, but also as new devices to detect and treat neurological conditions such as stroke or epilepsy.
Website: www.cyberkineticsinc.com

 

  

Cytos Biotechnology AG is engaged in the discovery and development of a new class of biopharmaceutical products called Immunodrugs™. To stabilize, prevent or reverse the disease process, Immunodrugs™ instruct the patient’s immune system to produce the desired antibodies or cytotoxic T cells to eliminate or block a disease-associated protein.
Website: www.cytos.com
 



DeveloGen AG is a drug discovery company developing novel therapies for metabolic disorders based on extensive model organisms and stem cell expertise. The company currently has two technology platforms focusing on metabolic phenotypic screens and harnessing key developmental control genes involved in stem cell differentiation and tissue regeneration.
Website: www.evotec.com/de/develogen
 

  

Exelixis Pharmaceuticals Inc. is engaged in the identification and development of small molecule drugs for a range of diseases. Through several unique model systems, the company discovers and validates high-quality novel targets for several major human diseases and is a leader in the discovery of potential new drug therapies for cancer and other proliferative diseases.
Website: www.exelixis.com
 

 

  acquired by MChE in June 2014 

Fibrex Medical Inc. aims to become a leader in the development and commercialization of pharmaceuticals targeting fundamental mechanisms of inflammation-based tissue injury. FIBREX Medical has identified several synthetic peptides with novel mechanisms of action as lead compounds. The most advanced development product FX06, aimed at the prevention of reperfusion injury after treatment for myocardial infarction will enter clinical studies soon.
 



GLYCART Biotechnology AG uses its proprietary GlycoMAb™ glycosylation engineering technology to boost the natural mechanism of action of therapeutic antibodies for target cell ablation. The company develops its own GlycoMAb™–based portfolio of therapeutic antibodies targeting cancer and autoimmune diseases, and offers to selected pharma and biotech companies improve their antibody-based drug candidates with the GlycoMAb™ technology.
Website: www.roche.ch/schlieren.html


   

Horizon Pharma is the combined company formed by merger of Nitec Pharma with Horizon Therapeutics in April 2010. The company is developing and commercializing innovative medicines to target unmet therapeutic needs in arthritis, pain and inflammatory diseases.
Website: www.horizonpharma.com

 



Intercell AG is a biotechnology company focused on the development of vaccines against infectious diseases and cancer. Founded in 1998, the company is developing novel therapeutic and preventative vaccines against infectious diseases including hepatitis C and tuberculosis, and against certain types of cancer. The development of so-called “smart vaccines” is possible owing to unique proprietary technologies that enable antigen identification and synthesis as well as the strengthening of the T-cell immune response by “immunizers” (adjuvants).

 



MediGene AG is a publicly quoted (Frankfurt: Prime Standard), German-American biotechnology company located in Martinsried, Germany and San Diego, USA. MediGene is the first German biotech company with a drug on the market. The company has the most mature drug development pipeline in the German biotech industry (drug candidates undergoing clinical phase I - III trials). In addition, MediGene possesses innovative platform technologies with its HSV technology and the newly acquired EndoTAG TM technology. MediGene's core competence lies in research and development of novel approaches for the treatment of various tumor diseases. Thus MediGene focuses on indications of high medical need and economic opportunities.
Website: www.medigene.com
 



Memory Pharmaceuticals Corp. is a neuropharmaceutical drug development company active in the filed of learning and memory disorders. The company discovers and develops memory-enhancing drugs known as cognition enhancers. For this purpose, the company uses a proprietary COGNOSTICS™ technology platform that drives the critical steps involved in target validation, chemical hit and lead identification, lead optimization, and selection of clinical development candidates.




NeurogesX is a specialty pharmaceutical company located in the San Francisco Bay Area. Its initial focus is to develop novel treatments to better relieve neuropathic pain and improve quality of life using advanced neuroscience insights and innovative delivery technologies.
 



Oxford Bioscience Partners is a life science venture capital firm that provides equity financing and management assistance to start-up and early-stage, entrepreneurial-driven companies in the bioscience and healthcare industries. The General Partners of Oxford currently manage venture funds with combined committed capital of more than US$ 800 million.
Website: www.oxbio.com
 



Pelikan Technologies, Inc. combines novel and proprietary blood sampling and measurement techniques with state-of-the-art miniaturization and automation to develop superior hand-held diagnostic and monitoring devices. The initial application of the company’s technology is the development of next generation advanced spot blood glucose monitoring products for the diabetes community. Based on Pelikan’s innovative technology platform, these fully integrated products promise to streamline blood glucose monitoring from a cumbersome, painful, multi-step process to an automated, one-step process that dramatically improves ease-of use, significantly reduces the pain associated with some sample collection, and provides a highly reliable reading. The company also believes that its proprietary technology platform will lead to the development of state-of-the-art diagnostic and monitoring devices for a variety of other medical conditions that involve blood screening and monitoring. Point-of-care testing and diagnostic panel test systems also represent markets that can greatly benefit from this novel technology.
 

  

Sequenom, Inc. is a leading genetics company organized into two distinct business units: SEQUENOM Genetic Systems and SEQUENOM Pharmaceuticals. The two business units combine to capitalize on the company's high performance MassARRAY genotyping technology, SNP assay portfolio, disease gene discovery programs and extensive DNA sample repository. Sequenom Pharmaceuticals focuses on disease gene discovery, target identification, functional validation and ultimately diagnostic and therapeutic product development. Utilizing a strategic population genetics approach, the pharmaceutical unit is systematically identifying potential disease-related genes that affect significant portions of the overall population.
Website: www.sequenom.com
 



SCT Spinal Cord Therapeutics GmbH, a biopharmaceutical company located in Duesseldorf, Germany, is focusing on the treatment of nervous system injuries. Neuraxo`s key proprietary technology, the Regeneration Promoting Treatment, is the first and only existing therapy allowing the regeneration of injured nerves following their natural nerve tract, thus enabling the recovery of sensory and motor function. Neuraxo’s lead product candidate, Cordaneurin®, has been granted Orphan Drug Designation by the European Medicines Agency (EMEA) in 2004 for the indication ‘treatment of traumatic spinal cord injuries’, and will enter clinical trials in December 2005 on patients with acute spinal cord injury. Neuraxo has been founded as a spin-off of the Heinrich-Heine University, Duesseldorf in 2001.

 



TechAMP International L.P., managed by A. M. Pappas & Associates, invests in early- to late-stage life science companies throughout the United States. The primary interest of TechAMP funds is in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical sector, and includes companies developing platform technologies arising out of the fields of genomics, proteomics, and computational chemistry that accelerate and/or reduce the cost of the drug discovery process.
Website: www.ampappas.com 


Zalicus Inc., is a biopharmaceutical company that discovers and develops novel treatments for patients suffering from pain and immune-inflammatory diseases. The company applies its selective ion-channel modulation platform and its combination high throughput screening capabilities (chats) to discover innovative therapeutics for itself and its collaborators.


7TM   »»»  Management Buy-Out in April 2012 

7TM Pharma A/S, is dedicated to the discovery and development of medicines acting through 7TM receptors (seven transmembrane segment receptors, GPCR), a vast class of targets for today’s pharmaceutical industry. With its proprietary know-how on these receptors it aims to generate new compounds with non-obvious structures and a tailored profile. The primary therapeutic focus of 7TM Pharma is on metabolic disorders and it has programs in asthma /allergy, indications with large therapeutic markets. 7TM Pharma has several agonists in clinical and preclinical development. 7TM Pharma acquired Carex in May 2006.

 

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