Celtic Pharma Sees a Role for Private Equity in Biotech
This article was originally published in Start Up
Executive Summary
The recently launched private equity firm Celtic Pharma aims to bridge the gap between biotech companies that have trouble financing R&D for mid- to late-stage projects and the Big Pharma firms desperate to rebuild their pipelines. The group's first fund, at around $1 billion, aims to bring together approximately 20 late-stage projects, take each through to regulatory approval, and license them out to the highest bidder.
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Busy Times and Divergent Strategies for Celtic Pharma's Follow-On Funds
The various Celtic funds (there are three, with two sprouting from the original Celtic Pharma I Holdings established in 2004) posted a very busy January, closing deals involving Kolltan Pharmaceuticals Inc., Cantab Pharmaceuticals PLC, Inspiration Biopharmaceuticals Inc. and PolyTherics Ltd. But the details of these transactions help illustrate how the two actively investing successor funds have established fundamentally different investment strategies, even if those strategies can overlap at times.