Zurich-based business development, finance and strategy consultancy HS LifeSciences has established an investment fund called QureInvest, dedicated to new start-up biotech companies.
Zurich-based business development, finance and strategy consultancy HS LifeSciences has established an investment fund called QureInvest, dedicated to new start-up biotech companies.
So far, QureInvest has attracted CHF27.5m from an international group of private investors.
QureInvest/HS LifeSciences’ business model is a strictly market-driven approach to value creation in biotechnology by closely linking science and business development from the very beginning.
Its concept is based on experience with prior investments and transactions completed by the HS LifeSciences team, including U3 Pharma and Neurimmune Therapeutics.
QureInvest’s goal is to provide its portfolio companies with funding independently from traditional venture capital, while helping the management teams to find optimum commercialization opportunities for their technologies and products by tailoring their programmes to the needs of their pharma partners.
QureInvest anticipates to make multi-million dollar investments in innovative, novel technologies or research stage products.
CT Atlantic, a Zurich-based oncology company focusing on human-derived antibodies, is QureInvest’s first investment.
‘We are very excited that we have been able to establish QureInvest in these turbulent times,’ says Dr Karsten Henco, chairman and president of HS LifeSciences.
‘We are particularly happy to have attracted significant investments from experienced private investors who have a realistic view on the risk and time associated with achieving high level returns from biotechnology. The HS LifeSciences model holds tremendous promise for some new enterprises.’
Edward Stuart, the firm’s chief executive, says: ‘Since 2000, the limits of the traditional venture capital model with serial financing rounds involving multiple partners have become obvious in the biotech sector.
‘From an operational perspective, it has become increasingly difficult for biotech companies to manage their businesses and focus on rapid, high quality product development while HSLifeSciences trying to engineer an exit for their investors.
‘Therefore, we are convinced that QureInvest, a semievergreen fund with a clear focus on long-term value creation and a view to benefitting from product sales, is much better suited to tap the full potential of the biotech industry.’
HS LifeSciences was founded in 2008 by Henco, Stuart and Christian Wenger.
