ProFibrix, a rising star of pharma companies

06 Aug 2013
by Francesco De Rubertis

Since 2007, Index Ven­tures has been the largest share­holder in a ris­ing star of pharma com­pa­nies, ProFib­rix - a vi­sion­ary com­pany whose lead prod­uct aims to save lives and speed re­cov­ery for pa­tients un­der­go­ing bleed­ing dur­ing surgery and after trauma.

Today, our be­lief in ProFib­rix - and par­tic­u­larly in founder and CSO Jaap Koop­man, PhD - has been jus­ti­fied with the news of their ac­qui­si­tion by The Med­i­cines Com­pany. This ac­qui­si­tion co­in­cides with some very en­cour­ag­ing data from Phase III of the trial of Fi­bro­caps - an im­por­tant bi­o­logic that helps limit bleed­ing in pa­tients - and can help save lives.

From the very be­gin­ning, our back­ing of ProFib­rix was an ex­pres­sion of our high de­gree of con­fi­dence in Jaap, in his very clear ideas and vi­sion, and his life­long ex­pe­ri­ence in the fib­rino­gen space. True to form, in the six years since that ini­tial round Jaap has kept the com­pany’s focus on the orig­i­nal idea be­hind Fi­bro­caps.

The focus has re­mained ul­tra-sharp and in six in­tense years the com­pany has pro­gressed from a very early, pre-clin­i­cal stage ini­tial idea into a com­pleted Phase III com­pany.  That’s the rea­son to ap­plaud Jaap as well as CEO Jan Öhrström, MD and Arnoud Dijk­stra, PhD, Chief Busi­ness Of­fi­cer, who held the same title when we worked with him at Pan­genet­ics, when its PG110 anti-NGF an­ti­body was ac­quired by Ab­bott Labs for $170 mil­lion.

We are also ea­gerly an­tic­i­pat­ing con­tin­ued great suc­cesses with ProFib­rix now part of The Med­i­cines Com­pany fam­ily. There sim­ply could not be a bet­ter fit for ProFib­rix than The Med­i­cines Com­pany, truly one of the most in­no­v­a­tive play­ers in pharma, and we com­mend Chair­man and CEO Clive A. Mean­well, MD, PhD, for this move.