Biotech Hub in Eastern Bavaria
S-Refit AG, located in Regensburg, has increased its biotech portfolio by about 30 percent of currently invested investment resources since transferring its investment activities to SchmidtBank in 2003. This action created the largest and most influential regional biotech investment company. Founded in 1990 as an innovation and technology development fund, the company became a corporation in 2002 and has to date approximately 15 million € Equity capital and 25 million € total capital. The successful development of BioRegio Regensburg and BioPark offer more and more profitable investments and chances for investors in the field of biotechnology. In addition, a parallel development has occurred in the newly established biotech scene in the form of a local market for professional advisors and investment management. The need for capital of biotech companies spans from start-up financing through growth financing up to going public. The nine members of the S-Refit AG team have been successful in all the mentioned areas over the last few years and have, through these activities, contributed to the structural changes that have created an attractive biotech location. S-Refit AG is currently managing the portfolios of successful companies such as, November AG, 3 Clinical Research AG, Antisense Pharma GmbH, Geneart GmbH and Alopex GmbH. According to Dr. Peter Terhart, director of S-Refit AG, “Biotechnology will continue to cover a large area of the portfolio range at S-Refit at S-Refit in the future.”
Lacuna AG (lacuna = lat. gap, niche), located in Regensburg and Switzerland is an independently run investment company, which among other interests invests in biotechnology via its biotechnology fund. The DG Lux Lacuna Apo Biotech Fund, which was established in 1999, recently received an AA-rating from the well-known rating agency Standard & Poor’s. Only 20 percent of all investment funds are considered for this rating process. The DG Lux Lacuna Apo Biotech Fund is the only European biotech fund to receive an AA-fund management rating. As another matter of interest, one of the ten highest positions in this 135 million € fund is held by the US-company Tularik Inc. with a branch located in Regensburg’s BioPark. Lacuna has also profited from the huge boom on the US biotech scene as 70 percent of its fund volume is invested in US biotech companies.
Lacuna was established in Regensburg in 1996, at a time when Germany, and the Regensburg region, campaigned to establish itself, through the BioRegio competition in the fields of bio and gene technology. High quality in research and products as well as financial resources is essential to maintain competition with the USA. The large US biotech companies i.e. Amgen or Genentech with their billion dollar turnovers and several thousands of employees were founded in the late seventies and early eighties. These companies have often invested more than 15 years in the development and marketing of their products. In this time investors had to be continuously found to maintain consistent growth. They also had to be convinced of promising results. Currently, over 300 new biotechnological medicines are in the licensing phase or just before entering it. The authorization of a new preparation in conjunction with a long-term patent right maintains a monopoly status for these companies. Now, finally, after years of cost intensive research, it is possible for biotech companies and their investors to attain a profit margin and pay off procured expenses as well as make new capital for the development of new medicines.
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