India's True North makes $75m biosimilars bet

The private equity firm will take a 2.44% stake in Biocon Biologics, valuing the entity at approximately $3 billion. Biocon will retain a 96.07% interest, according to a statement. The transaction is described as a restructuring initiative that will also see Biocon’s drug discovery and development research division – which has previously collaborated with Europe-headquartered Mylan on a monoclonal antibody program – merge with Biocon Biologics.

True North acquired a 10% stake in Syngene International, a contract research organization (CRO) subsidiary of Biocon Research, for INR3.8 billion in 2014. Syngene listed the following year and True North gradually sold down its position via the public markets. The private equity firm invested in Biocon itself in 2003, also exiting following an IPO.

Biosimilars – which are based on monoclonal antibodies – are drugs with nearly identical effects to medications already on the market. They offer opportunities to increase access to biologics by stimulating price competition and may lower healthcare costs. Biocon Biologics has a product pipeline of 28 molecules. Eleven came from collaborations with Mylan, several more from collaborations with Sandoz, and the rest are being developed independently.

So far, the company has commercialized five biosimilars, targeting several kinds of cancer, diabetes, and the production of white blood cells to fight infection in patients undergoing chemotherapy. Three of these treatments are available in developed markets like the EU, Australia, the US, and Japan. Biocon Biologics wants to serve five million patients and generate annual revenues of $1 billion by 2022.

True North has had a long successful association with Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw and the entire Biocon team and see them as pioneers and leaders in specialized niches. We truly admire their ability in incubating and scaling up new focused businesses and we have had the opportunity to invest earlier in two such businesses - Biocon and Syngene. We are happy to associate with them for the third time through this investment in Biocon Biologics,” said Satish Chander, a partner at True North.

The private equity firm is currently in the market with its sixth fund, which was launched in 2017 with a hard cap of $1.1 billion but then revised downwards to $990 million. True North has invested $600 million across 10 healthcare and life sciences companies to date, most recently acquiring Max Bupa Health Insurance.

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• Topics
• South Asia
• Healthcare
• Expansion
• India
• True North
• Growth capital
• Pharmaceuticals