News & Insights
This is where we share our own and our portfolio companies’ press releases as well as relevant Sunstone articles, analyses and SoMe posts.
5 latest press releases
5 latest articles
News Archive
Sunstone Life Science Ventures is looking for a Student Assistant
We are looking for a student to join our team for approximately 8 hours a week. As part of the team, you will play a pivotal role in the management of our deal flow, which lies in the order of 400-500 opportunities every year. Alongside management of our deal flow...
Synendos Therapeutics Appoints Scientific Advisory Board
Synendos Therapeutics (Synendos), a biopharmaceutical company focused on restoring the natural functioning of the endocannabinoid system to treat Central Nervous System (CNS) disorders, today announces the appointment of well renowned CNS experts to form its...
MinervaX provides clinical and leadership update
MinervaX, a privately held Danish biotechnology company developing a novel vaccine against Group B Streptococcus (GBS), today announces clinical progress on its maternal GBS vaccine as well as multiple additions to its leadership teams. MinervaX is developing a...
Ascelia Pharma Signs Clinical Collaboration
Agreement With Taiho Oncology, Inc. for the Development of Oncoral in Combination with LONSURF®
Ascelia Pharma AB (publ) (ticker: ACE) today announced that it has signed a clinical collaboration agreement with Taiho Oncology Inc., a subsidiary of Taiho Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. The collaboration concerns an upcoming global Phase 2 clinical study in gastric...
Galecto Announces First Patient Treated in Phase 2a Trial of the Oral LOXL2 Inhibitor GB2064 in Myelofibrosis (the MYLOX-1 Trial)
Galecto, Inc. (NASDAQ: GLTO), a biotechnology company focused on the development of novel treatments for fibrosis and cancer, today announced the treatment of the first patient in a Phase 2a trial of its oral LOXL2 inhibitor GB2064 in myelofibrosis. Myelofibrosis, a...
Synendos Therapeutics Expands Series A to CHF 24 million with new investment
Synendos Therapeutics is thrilled to announce an extension to the Series A financing with the addition of Ysios Capital to its syndicate of European investors. Ysios Capital’s contribution brings the total raised to CHF 24 million, following a Series A financing...
Alligator Bioscience and MacroGenics Enter into a Research Collaboration to Develop a Novel Immunotherapy
Alligator Bioscience (Nasdaq Stockholm: ATORX) today announced that it has entered into a joint research collaboration with MacroGenics, Inc. (NASDAQ: MGNX), a biopharmaceutical company focused on developing and commercializing innovative monoclonal antibody-based...
Step Pharma Raises EUR35 Million in Series B Financing to Advance First in Class CTPS1 inhibitor into the Clinic in T Cell Malignancies
Step Pharma, a biotech company developing novel drugs for oncology and autoimmune diseases, today announced the successful closing of a EUR35 million Series B financing. New investors Hadean Ventures and Sunstone Life Science Ventures co-led the round, joining...
Alligator Bioscience appoints Søren Bregenholt as new CEO
Alligator Bioscience (Nasdaq Stockholm: ATORX) today announced that the Board of Directors has appointed Søren Bregenholt, Ph.D. as the company’s new Chief Executive Officer (CEO), to strengthen Alligator’s business development activities and clinical progress on an...
Articles Archive
Who is in the driver’s seat of our industry?
A recent analysis from Pharma Intelligence | Informa 2021 highlights the current trends of pipeline products (top panel). We have subsequently surveyed Sunstone’s incoming deal flow for the same period and noted the correlation for the top 3 categories with oncology...
US IPO: Value recognition? Not really! Trading liquidity? Yes!
We previously looked at M&A of VC funded private and listed companies in the EU and US (https://bit.ly/3EU4n8H). Listing EU companies in the US is perceived as more attractive or beneficial – but is it reflected in the numbers? Recently, we decided to take a...
Why would you do a US IPO?
We recently compared EUR >50M M&A’s of VC funded EU and US drug developing companies and concluded that a substantial difference exists between the EU and US (https://bit.ly/3uftQmU). Previously we have also looked at EU M&A’s before or after an IPO....
M&A multiples in the US – should you go west?
Sunstone has previously investigated the return multiples of venture capital funded companies HQ’ed in Europe (https://bit.ly/3n0bd3B) and concluded that when the total invested amount exceeds EUR 50M, the return multiple tends to stay below 5 in M&A transactions....
Best country for sourcing new deals?
Do you also in your mind have a priority list of destinations to visit once the world normalises and you can get back on a plane? If so, and if you are a Venture Capitalist, you may also be wondering which countries have been creating most Life Science M&A...
Why are we investing in Drug Development and hesitating with regards to Medical Devices or Diagnostics?
Part of the answer is obviously that our past experiences and successes fall within Drug Development – but also that both MedTech and Diagnostics seem to have a lower likelihood of getting to an exit once you have invested. Defining the field for Medical Devices and...
Increasing the investor return multiple with an IPO?
For private company M&A the multiple stayed below 5x after a company had raised more than EUR 45M (https://bit.ly/36dPAVy). We have now added 12 European M&As completed after an IPO. The figure below shows the “Grand return multiple”, i.e. our calculation of...
To IPO… or not to IPO
We have recently added 12 venture funded companies to our M&A analysis of European therapeutic companies acquired post-IPO. As expected, those companies were acquired at a later developed stage. As previously highlighted most European venture capital funded...
Modest interest in Human Safety!?
We have previously highlighted that most European venture capital funded therapeutic companies are acquired after receiving less than EUR 45M in venture capital funding. It also appears that companies are acquired either before EUR 10M have been invested or after an...
The best VC’s for developing Therapeutics in Europe?
The VC’s investing in Europe can be ranked by the number of times they have participated in a EUR >50M M&A of a company developing therapeutics. In Sunstone’s analysis of the 56 M&As that took place in the period 2010-2020, 243 named investors participated....
Beating the odds
What do you think? Let us know in our feed on LinkedIn: Using Pitchbook® we have identified 56, EUR >50M, M&A transactions of VC funded companies developing therapeutics from 2010 to 2020 and have modelled the investor cash flow in each of the companies....
Are antibody-based therapeutics and venture capital a bad mix?
Sunstone monitors and analyzes all M&A transactions for therapeutic companies HQ’ed in Europe, with an exit transaction value exceeding EUR 50M. Upon fragmenting the 43 transactions executed between 2010 and 2020 by modalities, we were surprised to observe that...
Are big financing rounds and venture star multiples a realistic expected outcome?
Like many of our colleagues, our initial investment hypothesis is always to achieve a 5-10x return when we invest. When achieved, these are often referred to as the stars, performers or unicorns of a venture capital portfolio. Sunstone continuously monitors and...
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