Utrecht, The Netherlands - July 19, 2005 - Gilde Healthcare, managed by Gilde
Investment Management, announced today that it has signed an agreement to sell its
equity stake in Swiss based GlycArt Biotechnology AG to Roche (SWX:ROCZ), one of
the world’s leading research focused healthcare groups in the field of pharmaceuticals
and diagnostics.
Roche will pay approximately CHF 235 million (EUR 152 million) in cash in exchange for
all outstanding shares of GlycArt.
Gilde Healthcare acted as co-lead investor of an international syndicate which invested
EUR 13.6 million in the Series A financing round of GlycArt in November 2003. Edwin de
Graaf, partner at Gilde Healthcare and non-executive Director of GlycArt, commented:
"GlycArt’s management has done an outstanding job in building a company with cutting
edge technology and a pipeline of promising antibodies within a few years time. This
transaction shows the potential for realizing attractive returns in the European
biotechnology sector."
GlycArt was founded in 2000 as a spin-off from the Swiss Federal Institute of
Technology (ETH) at Zürich. The company is focused on the development and
commercialization of a new generation of antibody therapeutics based on its proprietary
GlycoMAb technology. GlycoMAb increases the potency of therapeutic antibodies
targeting undesirable cells by engineering the carbohydrate component present in all
such antibodies. Glycart has developed a product pipeline which includes three
monoclonal antibodies in preclinical development for cancer.
About Gilde Healthcare
Netherlands-based Gilde Investment Management is a global private equity investor with
EUR 1.5 billion under management in four specialized private equity Funds.
Gilde’s Healthcare Fund focuses on innovative life science companies in Europe and
invests from seed stage through to late stage. Gilde acts as (co-)lead investor in
international consortia.
Following its first healthcare Fund, Gilde will raise a successor fund, Gilde Healthcare II.
This new Fund has a target size of EUR 125 million and will be placed in the course of
2005.
Contact:
Edwin de Graaf
Investment Director
Gilde Investment Management
Tel. +31 30 219 2536
healthcare@gilde.nl
www.gilde.nl