Epidarex Capital, a transatlantic venture capital firm focused on life sciences spinouts, has gained a £50 million cornerstone investment from the British Business Bank for its new fund.
The British Business Bank previously also provided £50 million for Epidarex’s £102 million Fund III, which closed in 2020.
“We are delighted to be continuing our longstanding partnership with the British Business Bank to seed and build another wave of the most promising life science companies based on breakthrough science from across all parts of the UK.
“We are excited to continue supporting the UK’s top entrepreneurs and scientific founders in unlocking new therapeutic possibilities for patients, by accessing capital from an experienced, early-stage, manager.”
Sinclair Dunlop, general partner and co-founder of Epidarex Capital
Based in Edinburgh, Epidarex specialises in life sciences startups, often partnering with medical research institutions in the UK and the US to support spinouts with seed and series A financing.
It particularly focuses on unmet disease areas, including in oncology, inflammation, cardiometabolic, and neuroscience.
Since 2019, the firm has also run a therapeutic discovery engine, Epidarex Exeed, which pairs scientific discoveries with drug discovery, project management and CRO partners to advance early-stage assets and create new companies.
“We are investing more into UK life sciences, which is one of the eight growth sectors of the UK Industrial Strategy. The bank is highly active in the sector, having already committed over half a billion into specialist life science funds.
“However, we will continue to back fund strategies like Epidarex. The UK has a very strong science and research base, so what is needed is investors who specialise in nurturing and scaling those ideas, creating new, IP-rich companies.”
Christine Hockley, managing director and co-head of funds, British Business Bank
