- Keensight Capital has announced the acquisition of a majority stake in Turku-based Biovian
- Biovian is a one-stop-shop of biopharmaceuticals providing manufacturing and development services
- This acquisition supports Biovian to increase capacities, expand and further internationalize its current client base and further extend the one-stop-shop concept and reinforce its services portfolio
Keensight Capital, one of the leading players in Growth Buyout, has announced the acquisition of a majority stake in Biovian, a leading European player in contract manufacturing and development of biopharmaceuticals, alongside the founders and the managers, and Edmond de Rothschild Equity Strategies (ERES) funds.
Founded in 2003, Biovian is a one-stop-shop GMP (Good Manufacturing Practice) CDmO of biopharmaceuticals providing manufacturing and development services from early stage to finished product. The company offers its expertise and state-of the art technologies for clients in many therapeutic areas including immuno-oncology, gene therapy and vaccine development. Biovian’s broad service offering includes comprehensive analytical solutions to support drug substance and drug product development and release, as well as analytical and microbiological testing of investigational and commercial drug substances, drug products or medical devices. Biovian is EMA certified for GMP manufacturing (incl. biopharmaceuticals, gene therapies and sterile aseptically filled products) and inspected by FDA.
Biovian provides services to about 30 customers including international biotechs and biopharma companies from the U.K., E.U., U.S. and South Korea. Based in Finland, Biovian has 70 employees and aims to double revenue and staff over the next 5 years.
The outsourced biologics development market is a growing market space driven by structural changes in the pharma industry, such as a shift from chemical to biologics molecules and overall an increased complexity of molecules and growing share of outsourcing. Through its knowledge of the pharma industry and its experience in the CDmO sector, amongst others its investment in Unither, Keensight Capital will mobilize significant resources to help the management team to implement a strategic development plan to become a European leader.
With this operation, Keensight Capital and the ERES funds invest a majority stake in order to support Biovian to:
– Increase capacities, both in the complex microbial development space and in the booming viral vector and gene therapy market,
– Expand and further internationalize its current client base and
– Further extend the one-stop-shop concept and reinforce its services portfolio to support its clients over additional stages of their products’ life cycle.
Magdalena Svensson, Partner at Keensight Capital, stated: “We are extremely enthusiastic to have gained the trust of Dr. Knut Ringbom and his highly experienced management team. We identified the company for its strong international footprint as well as its solid positioning within the strongest growth segment of the pharma industry. As a reference player in this complex market segment characterized by a stringent regulatory environment, combined with a profitable growth, Biovian has all assets to fit our investment strategy. We will accompany Biovian’s management to create tomorrow’s European leader in the Biologics CDmO space.”
Dr. Knut Ringbom, Chief Executive Officer of Biovian, said: “We are very pleased to team up with Keensight Capital and welcome such a respected investor as a partner. Thanks to their support, we intend to develop our offer and know-how on existing technologies (microbial, mammalian and viral vector platforms), in the context of a strongly growing biopharma CDmO market with significant capacity shortages. We are convinced that with their deep knowledge of the healthcare sector, and their extensive international network, we will together enable our company to fulfil its ambitions to become the market’s first choice full service CDmO.”
The representatives of Biovian received the Export prize from Turku Chamber of Commerce in January 2018.