Index Ventures, which is well known for funding Skype, Dropbox and Candy Crush Saga online game during their inception is spinning off its life science investment into an independent firm named Medicxi Ventures. The new venture-capital firm will continue to operate with Index Ventures' current life science team alongside the existing biotech portfolio companies.
Medicxi Ventures which would emerge as one of the largest biotechnology investment companies in Europe would reportedly have $750 million under management. The company will be backed up by two of the giant pharmaceutical companies Johnson & Johnson of New Brunswick, New Jersey and GlaxoSmithKline Plc. London, according to The PE Hub Network.
GlaxoSmithKline Plc. and Johnson & Johnson have funded $230 million to Medicxi Ventures and each of the drug giants would reportedly contribute 25 percent of the total investment. With about $1 billion under management, including Medicxi Ventures and GlaxoSmithKline Plc. and Johnson & Johnson's contribution, the new life-science investment firm is the largest independent life-science investment firm in the whole of the Europe.
"The creation of Medicxi Ventures as a new entity is a natural evolution given that Index' life sciences team has been operating autonomously within the firm for several years," commented Neil Rimer, co-founder of Index Ventures, noted Out-Law.com. "We retain close ties and look forward to continuing to share ideas and expertise."
Francesco De Rubertis, General Partner of Medicxi Ventures, who joined Index Ventures back in 1997 to invest in life science and health care companies, said that it is the right time to make early stage life-science investments in Europe, reported Bloomberg Business.
"This is good news for the funding of early stage biotech companies, particularly coming close on the heels of the formation of the Apollo Fund, in which J&J and GSK also participated alongside AstraZeneca, and the UCL technology fund," said Life sciences expert Allistair Booth of Pinsent Masons, the law firm behind Out-Law.com.
Rubertis noted that about 40 percent of the drugs approved by U.S. Food and Drug Administration are developed in Europe and marketed by American companies. He added that he and his partners, Kevin Johnson, Michele Ollier and David Grainger aim at giving opportunity for researchers from Europe, say from Cambridge, London to Geneva to work on the ideas they conceive in their own laboratories.
Rubertis also added that Europe has a great scope for new biomedical innovations. As far Medicxi Ventures, Rubertis will reportedly manage the firm alongside Index veterans Johnson, Grainger and Ollier.
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