BioWorld International Correspondent

Gilde Healthcare Partners closed a €150 million (US$213 million) investment fund, adding to the list of large-scale fundraisings completed by European venture capital groups during 2007.

Utrecht, the Netherlands-based Gilde, had raised €85 million in a first closing with existing investors in July 2006. Since then, it added two other large financial institutions as well as a number of private investors. The final close took Gilde Healthcare II beyond its original target of €125 million.

It was helped along the way by some early success, as the new fund had invested in Amsterdam Molecular Therapeutics Holding BV, an Amsterdam, the Netherlands-based gene therapy firm that raised €50 million in an IPO on the Euronext Exchange in Amsterdam in June.

"For us, it was a very rewarding listing," Pieter Van Der Meer, general partner at Gilde, told BioWorld International. "We made an interesting multiple on that investment." It has not yet disposed of the shares, however, as it remains locked into the stock for now.

The new fund has made three other investments: in Lyngby, Denmark-based Symphogen A/S, which develops recombinant polyclonal antibodies; in San Diego-based Conatus Pharmaceuticals Inc., a specialty pharma company focused on liver disease; and in Sunnyvale, Calif.-based medical device firm FlowCardia Inc.

Gilde may invest up to 20 percent of its total assets in the U.S., Van Der Meer said, although the company only becomes involved in U.S. projects that have a low-risk profile. Gilde's main focus is on Western Europe, particularly the UK, Germany, France, Switzerland, Denmark, Sweden and the Benelux region.

Gilde has exited from five investments held by its first fund, which was established in 2000. Among the more successful were Zurich, Switzerland-based GlyCart Biotechnology AG, an antibody glycosylation engineering firm which Basel, Switzerland-based F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd. acquired for CHF235 million cash in July 2005.

Gilde gained a sevenfold multiple on its investment in that deal. It also invested in a Marseilles, France-based cancer drug discovery firm, Innate Pharma SA, which raised €33.7 million in an IPO on the Euronext exchange in Paris last November.

The IPO window is currently "half open," said Van Der Meer. "It has not closed completely but it's not fully open as it was some time ago. The good companies will continue to get out at a good price, but there is less opportunity for companies that are not well organized."

Two firms in Gilde's portfolio currently are preparing to list on the Euronext in Amsterdam before the year end, he said. They include Ghent, Belgium-based Ablynx NV, which has developed a proprietary platform for generating antibody fragments called Nanobodies, and BG Medicine, Inc., (formerly Beyond Genomics, Inc.), of Waltham, Mass., which uses systems biology to identify novel biomarkers.