Medicxi launches €267m fund

European early stage investor Medicxi will expand its investments into companies in the growth phase. The company said its US$300m (€267m) Medicxi Growth 1 (MG1)  Fund will focus on European companies with late stage programmes that already have passed clinical proof-of-concept bridging the current European funding gap with €10m to €25m investments per programme. Cornerstone investors are Novartis AG, Alphabet subsidiary Verily Life Sciences LLC and the European Investment Fund (EIF). The fund also includes most of the institutional LPs that previously backed Medicxi’s Medicxi Venture 1, as well as several new investors. MG1 will be supported by a Scientific Advisory Board (SAB), which will benefit from the sector expertise of the senior executives of Novartis and Verily.

Pier Luigi Gilibert, Chief Executive of the European Investment Fund, said: “The combination of Novartis, Verily and Medicxi will have a positive impact on the future of the life sciences sector in Europe. Since it was spun out of Index Ventures, Medicxi has continued to be a leader in the life sciences investment community, and this new fund offers us the opportunity to support companies with growth potential that for too long have had to look elsewhere.”

Since 2016, Medicxi has raised in excess of US$500m of new capital to invest across early and late stage companies through MV1 and MG1 including Obseva SA and Diasome Pharmaceuticals Inc.

GSK, Johnson & Johnson and Novartis, three of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies back Medicxi along with Verily, an Alphabet company. These companies, whilst participating in the SABs of the funds, do not receive any preferential rights to the portfolio companies.