Max Plank announces new €100M venture fund

Funding opportunity

Max Planck Innovation GmbH, the technology transfer arm of Germany’s Max Planck Society, announced that the European venture fund manager Life Science Partners has been appointed to manage its new €100 million venture capital fund.

The fund, DDC Ventures, will make investments into pharmaceutical projects primarily originating from the life science institutes of the Max Planck Society.

DDC Ventures has been put together by Max Planck Innovation and Inventive Capital Advisors LLP, an advisory firm specialising in technology commercialisation. The fund is in discussions with several cornerstone investors.

DDC Ventures and the recently launched Lead Discovery Center form the basis for Max Planck Innovation’s Drug Development Centre, which was awarded €20 million in funding from the German Ministry of Education and Research under its programme, “BioPharma – The strategy competition for medicine of the future.”

Life Sciences Partners, founded in 1988, has raised over €500 million and invests in private companies covering the entire life science arena, including drug development, diagnostics and medical instruments. LSP has invested in over 60 companies and has created more than 25 exits through IPOs on the European stock exchanges and through trade sales.

“We are thrilled to have such an experienced firm managing DDC Ventures,” said Jörn Erselius, CEO of Max Planck Innovation. “We have worked with Life Science Partners on several occasions, most recently in U3 Pharma. Life Science Partners was the lead investor in the largest financing round of U3 Pharma, a Max Plank Society spin-off founded in 2001, and helped in its sale to Daiichi Sankyo Co., for €150 million in May 2008.”

“Whether you look at publications, Nobel prizes or budget, the Max Planck Society is one of the top research organisations in life sciences world-wide, and we are honoured by the opportunity to help create commercial value from their high quality projects”, said Joachim Rothe, Life Science Partner’s General Partner based in Munich.

Every year, Max Planck Innovation evaluates about 150 inventions, of which about half lead to the filing of a patent application. Since 2000, it has advised about 50 spin-outs, closed more than 700 license deals and generated proceeds of more than €140 million.