The News

NOXXON Pharma AG raises €33 million in Series D Round

27/05/2010

Berlin, Germany, May 27, 2010 – NOXXON Pharma AG (NOXXON), a company focused on the development of mirror image oligonucleotide therapeutics called Spiegelmers, announced today the successful closing of a €33 million Series D round of financing. The round was led by new investor, NGN Capital, and joined by existing investors TVM Capital, Sofinnova Partners, Edmond de Rothschild Investment Partners, Seventure Partners, VC Fonds Technologie Berlin GmbH, Dow Venture Capital, FCP OP MEDICAL BioHealth-Trends, IBG Beteiligungsgesellschaft Sachsen-Anhalt mbH, the Dieckell Group, and others.

The funds raised will be used primarily for the ongoing clinical and pre-clinical development of NOXXON's lead products NOX-E36, NOX-A12, and NOX-H94 in the fields of diabetic complications, oncology and hematology. These products are high-potency inhibitors of their respective targets, generated with NOXXON’s proprietary Spiegelmer technology. Spiegelmers are marked by their biostability and an extremely low potential for toxic or immunogenic side effects.

"This investment provides NOXXON with the funds to advance the clinical development of our three most advanced in-house programs without the need for additional external support. NGN's decision to lead this round is a testament to the value of the Spiegelmer technology and the commercial potential of the development programs pursued by NOXXON." stated NOXXON's CEO Dr. Frank Morich.

Peter Johann, a Managing General Partner at NGN Capital, commented: "We are very excited about NOXXON's platform and the product opportunities which can be created from it. The Company and its experienced management team made significant progress over the last years bringing two Spiegelmers into the clinic and one more close to clinical development. With the funding NOXXON will be able to further clinically validate their technology and achieve clinical proof of efficacy with the lead compounds." Dr. Johann will join the Board of NOXXON.  

About NOXXON
Berlin-based NOXXON Pharma AG is a clinical stage biotechnology company focusing on the development of Spiegelmers for the treatment of various disease indications. NOXXON is in possession of a broad patent estate and has access to a readily scalable GMP production. In addition to its in-house programs, NOXXON discovers and develops Spiegelmers in collaboration with partners from the pharmaceutical industry, including Eli Lilly and Hoffmann La-Roche. The business strategy of NOXXON is to broaden this range of collaborations through co-development and licensing agreements for the proprietary clinical and pre-clinical products. Currently, the company has two compounds in clinical development. The declared goal of NOXXON is to establish its oligonucleotide-based drug discovery platform (Spiegelmers) as the leading "scaffold" technology to create new chemical entities with superior properties.

About NGN Capital
NGN Capital is a venture capital firm dedicated to healthcare investing, focusing on ventures with the potential to achieve above average private equity returns with an emphasis on later stage investments. The funds have flexibility to invest in a broad cross section of healthcare and biotechnology segments including drug products, medical devices and other healthcare segments like services. The funds are diversified by stage, from later stage to selected early stage opportunities, as well as by geography by investing predominantly in the US and in Europe.
NGN Capital's North American offices are in New York, NY, Greenwich, CT and its European office is in Heidelberg, Germany

About TVM Capital
The TVM Capital Life Science & Healthcare Practice currently manages committed capital of about 860 million Euros (.13bn) for investments in the life science and healthcare sectors from headquarters in Munich, an office in Boston and a representation in Singapore. The two sector teams build on the expertise, experience, international approach and demonstrated success of 113 investments and more than 70 exits including 37 initial public offerings of portfolio companies on Nasdaq, and the London, Frankfurt, Zurich and Vienna Stock Exchanges, and 24 trade sales. This track record of successful investing and value creation, in traditional early and late-stage life science venture as well as healthcare private equity, make the TVM Capital Life Science & Healthcare Practice a preferred partner for ambitiously growing companies in our target sectors.
The operating entity of the TVM Capital Healthcare Private Equity activities in the Middle East and Northern Africa (MENA) is TVM Capital MENA Ltd. based at the Dubai International Financial Center (DIFC), Dubai, United Arab Emirates. The firm operates the region's first Shari'a compliant and dedicated healthcare and pharmaceutical investment fund. The fund is regulated by the Dubai Financial Services Authority (DFSA).

About Sofinnova Partners
Sofinnova Partners is an independent venture capital firm based in Paris, France.  For over 35 years, the firm has backed nearly 500 companies at different stages of development – pure creations, spin-offs, as well as turnaround situations – and worked alongside Europe’s key entrepreneurs in the technology, life sciences and cleantech sectors.  With €1.1 billion of funds under management, Sofinnova Partners’ experienced team and hands-on approach in building portfolio companies through to exit have created market leaders, from landmark historical investments including Genentech, Actelion and Vistaprint to more recent successes such as CoreValve, Novexel, Fovea and Sensitive Object.  With a global mindset, the firm has a sister organization in San Francisco, California.  

About Edmond de Rothschild Investment Partners
Paris based Edmond de Rothschild Investment Partners (EdRIP) is dedicated to minority investments into privately owned companies. It has currently €750 million under management which are being invested primarily as life sciences venture capital and growth capital. Its life science team of seven professionals has over 90 years of cumulated experience in the life science industry and has a proven track record in biotechnology and medical technology investments. The team has approximately €270 million Euro under management, recently raised its €155 million BioDiscovery 3 fund, which is to be invested during the next years. EdRIP is part of the group Edmond de Rothschild, Paris, France. For more information, please visit www.edrip.fr

About Seventure
Being one of the leading venture capital firms in Europe, Seventure manages €500m and invests since 1997 in innovative businesses with high growth potential in Information & Communication Technologies and in Life Sciences. The Life Sciences team invests all over Europe. Its 4 preferred sectors are Biotech & Pharmaceuticals, Medtech, Industrial Biotech & Cleantech, and Lifestyle Healthcare & nutrition. A typical investment ranges from €500k to €10 m per round, up to €20 m per company, from early to later stage. Seventure is a subsidiary of Natixis Private Equity, the asset management company of Natixis, with over €4.2 bn in private equity investments. www.seventure.fr

Website:        
http://www.noxxon.com

General contact:

Emmanuelle Delabre
NOXXON Pharma AG
Max-Dohrn-Strasse 8-10
10589 Berlin, Germany
Phone:+ 49-30-726247-100
FAX:        + 49-30-726247-225

Email:        edelabre@noxxon.com