Andera Partners
Andera Partners supports Tubulis in a €60 million Series B financing to accelerate the development of its ADCs

Press Release

Andera Partners supports Tubulis in a €60 million Series B financing
to accelerate the development of its ADCs

Paris, France and Munich, Germany, May 3, 2022 – Andera Partners, a leading European private equity player, through its biotech and medtech practice Andera Life Sciences, announced today that it is leading a €60 million (USD $63 million) Series B financing round for Tubulis with participation from new investors Evotec and Fund+. All existing investors also participated in the round, including Bayern Kapital (with Wachstumsfonds Bayern 2), BioMedPartners, coparion, High-Tech Gründerfonds (HTGF), OCCIDENT and Seventure Partners. The new capital will be used to advance Tubulis’ proprietary pipeline of uniquely assembled antibody drug conjugates (ADCs) towards clinical evaluation as well as introduce programs addressing a range of solid tumor indications. The proceeds will enable the company to deliver the true therapeutic potential of ADCs through further innovation of novel payload classes and identification of new cancer targets.

“This funding emphasizes that Tubulis is uniquely positioned to consolidate the findings of the last 20 years in the ADC field and translate this understanding into meaningful therapeutic benefits for patients. We have reached an important inflection point in the development of our platform technologies, as well as our pipeline of highly novel protein-drug conjugates and we are now focused on unlocking new avenues in the treatment of solid tumors, bringing safe and effective ADCs to patients,” said Dominik Schumacher, PhD, CEO and co-founder of Tubulis. “With this capital in place, we will execute on our growth strategy, including important focus areas for our pipeline and for how we can apply our proprietary technologies, biologic insights and new mechanisms of action to enable the true therapeutic value inherent in targeted therapeutics.”

In conjunction with the round, Sofia Ioannidou, PhD, Partner at Andera Partners, Thomas Hanke, PhD, EVP, Head of Academic Partnerships at Evotec as well as Jan Van den Bossche, Partner at Fund+ will join Tubulis’ Board of Directors, consisting of Sebastian Pünzeler, PhD, Principal at coparion, Dominik Schumacher, PhD, CEO of Tubulis and Christian Grøndahl, MD, DVM, PhD, MBA, the Chairman of the Board. In addition, Valentin Piëch, PhD, Partner at BioMedPartners will take over the board seat from Michael Wacker, PhD, General Partner at BioMedPartners.

“With its unique toolkit of proprietary technologies and its pipeline of differentiated ADC candidates, Tubulis holds a compelling position in the ADC field,” stated Andera Partners’ Sofia Ioannidou, PhD. “We look forward to supporting this talented team in bringing innovative ADCs to patients and are confident that Tubulis has the potential to become a leader in the next era of ADC drug development.”

Olivier Litzka, PhD, partner in the Munich office of Andera Partners, added: “The Tubulis funding is significant for Andera as it is our first new investment in Germany after the opening of our Munich office in April 2021. While we have been investing in Germany since 2001, we see an increasing number of high-profile companies, which led to our recent portfolio additions T-Knife in Berlin, TRiCares in Munich, and Exciva in Heidelberg.“

Tubulis’ capability of creating a pipeline of antibody-drug conjugates is based on a diverse range of targeting molecules, novel payloads and proprietary conjugation technologies. They enable the discovery of truly innovative ADCs that go beyond traditional payload classes and can increase antibody conjugation options via novel chemical groups leading to stable, high drug-to-antibody ratios. Tubulis has developed superior Topoisomerase-I linker-payloads with significantly improved pharmacokinetic properties and unique conjugation chemistry enabling access to a novel payload class that has been chemically challenging for conjugation in the past.

The company’s lead tumor-targeting assets build upon this technological breadth and are currently in preclinical development addressing several high unmet medical need indications. Tubulis’ pipeline also includes a program for hematological tumors, which is on the path towards IND-readiness. Tubulis remains focused on pairing novel payloads with disease-specific targets to tackle the five deadliest cancer indications globally.

Baker McKenzie (Julia Braun) served as counsel for new Series B investors and CMS (Stefan-Ulrich Müller) for Tubulis.

About Andera Partners

Created over 20 years ago, Andera Partners is a major player in private company investments in France and internationally. Its teams manage over €3.2 billion in investments in life sciences (Andera Life Sciences), growth and buyout capital (Andera MidCap, Andera Expansion, Andera Croissance, Andera Co-Invest), sponsorless transactions (Andera Acto) and ecological transition (Andera Infra).

Based in Paris, with offices in Antwerp and Munich, Andera Partners is wholly owned by its teams, which count nearly 90 professionals, of which 56 are investment professionals. It is structured as a partnership and managed by a board of 10 partners. Responsible and committed, the management company regularly forms partnerships with non-profit sector entities and takes concrete action in the fight against global warming. Andera Partners has been certified carbon neutral since 2018.

Andera’s 15-person life sciences team brings together extensive experience in the life sciences industry, private equity and venture capital. Active since 2000, the team has raised over €1.1 billion through its BioDiscovery family of funds and is currently investing from its new BioDiscovery 6 fund. Since inception, the BioDiscovery funds have invested in more than 75 European and U.S. biotech and medtech companies.

For further information, please visit www.anderapartners.com.

About Tubulis

Tubulis generates uniquely matched protein-drug conjugates through the combination of novel proprietary technologies and disease-specific biologic insight. Our goal is to expand the therapeutic potential of antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs) by increasing design flexibility while overcoming constraints of toxicity, efficacy and indication. Tubulis will build new conjugates to fill its growing pipeline and will continue to collaborate with industry partners to usher in a new ADC era and deliver better outcomes for patients. Visit www.tubulis.com or follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter.

Media Contacts:

• Nicolas DELSERT, Andera Partners: +33 6 22 67 71 17 / n.delsert@anderapartners.com
• Marie-Charlotte POTET, Bien Commun Advisory: +33 6 47 97 39 46 / mc.potet@bcadvisory.fr
• Raimund GABRIEL, MC Services: +49 89 210 228 30 / raimund.gabriel@mc-services.eu
• Dr. Johanna KOBLER, MC Services: +49 89 210 228 46 / johanna.kobler@mc-services.eu