ORI Capital, a Hong Kong-based healthcare sector-focused investment firm, announced that it has exited biopharmaceutical firm Kymab, the largest investment in its first healthcare fund, in a $1.1 billion deal with Sanofi.
Founded in 2015, the firm led Kymab’s Series C financing round in 2016 through ORI Healthcare Fund and made follow-on investments in the UK biotech firm in 2019 and 2020.
The French pharmaceutical major Sanofi will pay $1.1 billion upfront, and up to $350 million upon achievement of certain milestones, to Kymab’s exiting shareholders. The deal is expected to complete in the first of this year.
Following the divestment, which gives ORI Fund I an exit multiple of 2.88x, ORI Capital also announced the first close of its second fund, ORI Healthcare Fund II, a $400-million vehicle that will continue to invest in innovative healthcare companies globally.
The announcement did not disclose the amount raised in the first close but a Reuters report said ORI managed to generate $112 million in capital commitments. The final close of the fund is set by the end of 2021.
ORI Fund II will focus on companies in the therapeutics, drug delivery, and diagnostic areas that address major diseases or diseases with high mortality rates. The firm said it combines fundamental research with quantitative analysis throughout the investment process.
The second fund seeks to double the size of the firm’s initial fund, which was launched in 2016 and raised $200 million.
ORI’s portfolio companies include Nasdaq-listed gene therapy firm Orchard Therapeutics; biologic injector Enable Injections; biotech firm TriSalus; tumor-testing company Pillar Biosciences; bladder cancer firm CG Oncology; Affiimmune Therapeutics Inc; medical imaging analysis firm Arterys; and anti-aging nutraceutical company Ponce De Leon Health.
A report released by global advisory consultancy Bain & Co in mid-2020 showed that the Asia Pacific healthcare sector saw at least $11.5 billion in deals done in 2019.
That was the second-highest deal value since the last recession, even as the number of deals fell to 68, from 88 in the year before. That just meant that deal sizes were bigger.
In Southeast Asia, deal value soared to $2.4 billion in 2019, from $720 million the year before, boosted by the $1.2 billion acquisition of the Southeast Asian assets of Malaysia-based Columbia Asia Hospitals by a consortium of TPG and Hong Leong Group.
