Perceptive Advisors Close on $1.1 Billion Credit Fund for Life Sciences Investments
Perceptive Advisors announced it has completed fundraising for its third credit fund, Perceptive Credit Opportunities Fund III (PCOF III). The fund had an original target of $750 million, but was so enticing to investors that it hit its $1.1 billion hard cap.
The firm’s second credit fund closed two years ago with $675 million. With this new fund, it expects to make 20 investments, including nine that have previously been invested in companies such as C4 Therapeutics and Pear Therapeutics.
They typically partner with small and medium-sized companies to provide capital solutions in the range of $10 million to $200 million per investment. Perceptive Advisors indicates they provide tailored private credit financing to both public and private healthcare companies at all stages and all subsectors, including biopharma, medical devices, diagnostics, life sciences research and digital health technologies.
“We are excited to continue to fund life sciences companies with alternative capital to power the innovation and commercialization of products and solutions addressing the healthcare markets,” said Sam Chawla, Portfolio Manager of Perceptive’s Credit Opportunities Funds. “Our focused credit strategy is well suited to the current investment environment and we have a formidable capital base to invest in compelling healthcare companies.”
About Perceptive Advisors
Founded in 1999, Perceptive Advisors has about $8.5 billion of assets under management. It launched the first Credit Opportunities Fund in 2014, “designed to integrate Perceptive’s longstanding investment research expertise and investment capabilities in life sciences with credit-based investments.”
PCOF III brings Perceptive’s capital solely focused on private credit in the funds to $2.1 billion. The commitments for PCOF III were from a diverse range of investors around the world, including foundations, endowments, pension funds, insurance companies, family offices and financial institutions.
“We are proud to continue to build our industry leading platform at Perceptive Advisors and are fortunate to have the support of a great set of global investors to continue our strategy of funding life sciences companies,” said Joseph Edelman, founder and chief executive officer of Perceptive Advisors.
In the last year, Perceptive Advisors has made 91 direct investments, including Solid Biosciences and Acerta Pharma. One of the most important was a 2019 investment in ArcherDx, a company based in Boulder, Colorado that is developing molecular diagnostics for cancer. In May 2019, Perceptive led a $60 million investment round for ArcherDx. Archer was then acquired by Invitae for $1.4 billion in June 2020.
Invita was a leader in diagnostics and hereditary risk testing. ArcherDX’s platform was based on its proprietary Anchored Multiplex PCR chemistry, which allowed it to develop products and services for cancer monitoring in liquid and tissue samples. ArcherDX had developed and commercialized more than 325 unique products, including research products and services used by more than 300 laboratories around the world, as well as collaborating with more than 50 biopharma companies and contract research organizations (CROs). Its partners included AstraZeneca, Bristol Myers Squibb and Bayer.
In August 2020, Perceptive Advisors launched Shanghai, China-based LianBio, which was founded, seeded and incubated by Perceptive. LianBio has three clinical oncology and cardiorenal product candidates in its pipeline. LianBio partnered with BridgeBio Pharma, MyoKardia, and BridgeBio Pharma affiliate companies Navire Pharma and QED Therapeutics to develop therapeutics in China and major Asian markets.
“We are tremendously proud to be launching LianBio and strongly believe in its mission to bring transformative therapeutics to China and other major Asian markets,” said Joseph Edelman, chief executive officer at Perceptive Advisors, at the time. “Our experience and precision-based asset mining platform will support and complement LianBio’s management team led by Bing Li and Debra Yu, seasoned executives with deep experience in the cross-border pharmaceutical landscape. This unique combination of talent and market savvy is already bearing fruit, including four partnerships to meet strong patient needs in target markets.”