By Sean Wolfe
Health care venture firm ProQuest Investments said Wednesday it had raised $425 million in its oversubscribed fourth fund, close to twice the level it raised three years ago.
Jay Moorin, managing director of the Princeton, New Jersey-based group said it planned to deploy the capital in much the same way as it has in the past—namely investing primarily in companies that have products already, or can develop products quickly that meet unmet needs, particularly in therapeutics.
The firm itself is stage agnostic, typically investing between $250,000 and $10 million in early, growth or later stage companies. From a sector perspective, the company branches outside of therapeutics to invest in medical devices, technologies and services in the health care space.
“We’re long term equity investors, and we typically stay in companies for a long time and remain supportive,” Mr. Moorin said. That applies to liquidity events as well.
One of ProQuest’s investments from its third fund, Cadence Pharmaceuticals, went public last October, but ProQuest has yet to liquidate its holdings, despite the fact that the company saw its stock price rise from an initial price of $9 per share at its debut, and has continued to trade in the $12-$13 range in recent weeks.
Other exits from that same fund include MethylGene, which went public on the Toronto Stock Exchange in 2004, and Ziopharm which went from being traded over the counter to a Nasdaq listing last September.
Recent investments include NovaDel Pharma, a publicly-traded company developing oral spray methods for drug delivery. In December, ProQuest joined a syndicate of investors in a private placement deal raising $14 million for the firm. Other participants included Heights Capital, Henderson Global Management, William Harris Investors and other institutional investors.
NovaDel Pharma, a publicly-traded company developing oral spray methods for drug delivery. In December, ProQuest joined a syndicate of investors in a private placement deal raising $14 million for the firm. Other participants included
The new fund closed with 80 percent going to ProQuest’s prior investors, and about 20 percent going to a group of new limited partners. While not disclosing the identities of the firm’s LPs, Mr. Moorin said the company has very few individual investors, and that the LPs fit the usual profile of pension funds, university endowments and similar institutions.
All in all, the new fund comes close to doubling the amount of money ProQuest has under management, from more than $450 million in 2006 to over $900 million this year.
Mr. Moorin said the company plans to put the capital to work immediately, and expects to announce several new deals later this month.