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Great Point Partners Announces sale of Caprion Proteomics
Introduction
GREENWICH, CT and MONTRÉAL, QUEBEC – Great Point Partners, LLC today announced the sale of Caprion Proteomics, Inc., a Great Point Partners I portfolio company. Caprion is a leading provider of proteomic services to the pharmaceutical industry that include: (i) biomarker discovery, (ii) biomarker validation, (iii) drug target discovery, (iv) advanced immune monitoring services, and (v) in-vitro diagnostics development. Under Great Point’s stewardship, Caprion completed two tuck-in acquisitions, enhanced its management team and grew EBITDA by over 300x. The growth was primarily driven by strong organic revenue growth, operating improvements and accretive tuck-in acquisitions.
Caprion’s differentiated and proprietary services offer a unique value proposition to global pharmaceutical and biotechnology clients, such as GlaxoSmithKline, Johnson & Johnson, and Merck by helping them achieve accelerated proof-of-concept by accurately identifying biomarkers at the protein level in pre-clinical and clinical studies across an array of disease indications. Biomarkers can lower the cost of drug development by reducing failure rates in clinical trials. With over 100 projects for 45 clients completed since 2008, the Company is recognized as a leader in its industry and a trusted partner by its clients.
The sale is a continuation of GPP I’s string of successful exits and occurs only seven months after its exit of Mediatech in December 2011 for 4.1x invested capital.
“This transaction represents a very successful outcome for Caprion’s current shareholders, as well as tangible evidence of the highly productive and synergistic partnership we have established with Great Point Partners over the past five years. Our partnership with Great Point played a central role in the strong performance and growth that Caprion achieved during this period, and in positioning the company for sustained future growth under new ownership as we continue to capitalize on the growing demand for proteomics services in the area of drug discovery and development.” said Martin LeBlanc, President and CEO of Caprion.
Adam Dolder, Managing Director of Great Point Partners and former Chairman of Caprion, stated “We could not be more thrilled with the successful outcome of our investment in Caprion. This transaction is a testament to the vision that we shared with Martin and a compliment to his excellent leadership in bringing that vision to reality. Caprion is a truly differentiated company that capitalizes on the major needs of its pharmaceutical and biotech clients and the value achieved in the transaction proves that point.”
About Great Point Partners
GPP, based in Greenwich, CT, is a leading health care investment firm with approximately $400 million of equity capital under management. The firm manages capital in public (the Biomedical Value Fund) and private equity funds (Great Point Partners I, LP). Great Point Partners has provided growth equity, growth recapitalization, and management buyout financing to more than 100 health care companies. The private equity fund invests in profitable companies across all sectors of the health care industry including behavioral health, biologics manufacturing, health care services, hospital outsourcing, information technology, life sciences, media and reagents, medical devices, rehabilitation, and workers compensation. The firm pursues a proactive and proprietary approach to sourcing investments. For more information, please visit www.gppfunds.com.
About Caprion Proteomics
Caprion Proteomics is a world leading provider of proteomics-based biomarker services and immune monitoring solutions to the pharmaceutical and biotech industries. Caprion’s proprietary proteomics technology, CellCarta®, is a gel-free, label-free mass spectrometry platform that enables a comprehensive, quantitative and robust measurement of the protein expression differences across large sets of biological samples. With research sites in Montreal, Canada and in Menlo Park, CA, Caprion has over a decade of experience providing large-scale proteomics biomarker and drug target discovery and validation services for over 50 major clients in the pharmaceutical, biotech and public sectors. Caprion also conducts internal programs aimed at discovering and developing novel in-vitro diagnostics markers for a variety of indications, including metabolic and infectious diseases and oncology, while serving as a biomarker center of excellence for the U.S. Government/NIH-NIAID for Biodefense research.Caprion entered into a worldwide strategic marketing and distribution alliance for biomarker services with Covance, Inc. (NYSE:CVD) in 2008. Caprion also acquired PPD Biomarker Discovery Sciences, LLC from PPD Inc. in 2010, and the assets of the National Immune Monitoring Laboratory in 2011. Caprion Proteomics, a privately-held company, is majority owned by Great Point Partners, LP. For more information, please visit www.caprion.com.
This document is intended solely to provide information regarding Great Point Partners’ potential financing capabilities for prospective portfolio companies.