Forbion participates in US financing rounds

Forbion is throwing a few million into the ring in order to participate in oversubscribed financing rounds in the USA. Both Series B financings have obviously generated a great deal of interest and both have exceeded their own targets. And both companies are based in San Diego, California (USA). And both times Forbion joined as a new investor.

Engrail Therapeutics announced the close of an oversubscribed $157m Series B financing round on 19th of March. The round was co-led by new investors F-Prime Capital, Forbion, and Norwest Venture Partners, with participation from RiverVest Venture Partners, Red Tree Venture Capital, funds managed by abrdn Inc., Ysios Capital, Longwood Fund, Eight Roads Ventures, and existing founding investor Pivotal Life Sciences. Since its inception in 2019, the Company has raised over $220m. Engrail is a precision neuroscience company focused on the development of transformational therapies in anxiety disorders, depression, posttraumatic stress disorder, and rare neurodegenerative diseases.

“With strong financial backing from highly sophisticated and dedicated life science investors, we are well positioned to deliver multiple value-creating milestones. Notably, we look forward to completing our ongoing ENX-102 phase 2 study in generalized anxiety disorder and advancing the rest of our pipeline into clinical development,” said Vikram Sudarsan, Ph.D., president and CEO of Engrail Therapeutics. Jasper Bos, Ph.D. (Forbion) joined the board of directors at Engrail.

Only one day later at the same place, with some of the same actors, Forbion announced its participation as a new investor in the closing of a $175m oversubscribed Series B financing in Capstan Therapeutics, Inc. 

The Series B financing was led by RA Capital Management, with additional participation from new investors Johnson and Johnson Innovation, Mubadala Capital, Perceptive Advisors, and Sofinnova Investments. Capstan’s brings together some high-ranking corporate ventures of major pharmaceutical companies in existing investors Alexandria Venture Investments, Bristol Myers Squibb, Eli Lilly, Leaps by Bayer, Novartis Venture Fund, OrbiMed Advisors, Pfizer Ventures, Polaris Partners, and Vida Ventures who also participated in the round. Capstan is a biotechnology company dedicated to advancing in vivo reprogramming of cells through RNA delivery using targeted lipid nanoparticles (tLNP). The Company also announced the appointment of Forbion General Partner Nanna Luneborg, PhD, MBA, to its Board of Directors. Commenting on her appointment to the Capstan Board Nanna Luneborg said, “We are delighted to join the outstanding team and investor syndicate at Capstan Therapeutics. Capstan is pioneering in vivo CAR-T therapy, eliminating the need for ex vivo cell modification, and with the potential to create a scalable, off-the-shelf product to the benefit of patients across multiple different diseases.”

Capstan marks the tenth investment from Forbion’s Growth Opportunities II Fund which raised €600m in 2023. However, the almost simultaneous large investments in the USA are not yet sufficient evidence of a general trend at Forbion to orientate its activities more transatlantically. A portion of the total amount from previous funds was always reserved for the USA.