ViraTherapeutics, an Innsbruck, Austria-based biopharmaceutical company developing innovative virus-based immunotherapeutics for the treatment of cancer, has been acquired by Boehringer Ingelheim in a transaction with a total value of €210m ($245m).
The acquisition follows a collaboration and option agreement signed between ViraTherapeutics and Boehringer Ingelheim in August 2016. Boehringer Ingelheim now has exercised its option to acquire the company.
The sale marks the third exit from EMBL Ventures’ current fund ETF II.
Led by Heinz Schwer, CEO, ViraTherapeutics is a biopharmaceutical company developing promising innovative virus-based immunotherapeutics for the treatment of cancer.
Founded in 2013 as a spin-out of the Medical University of Innsbruck by Prof. Dr. Dorothee von Laer, Head of the Division of Virology at the University, ViraT develops oncolytic cancer vaccines based on a chimeric virus derived from the Vesicular Stomatitis Virus (VSV), so called VSV-GP.
Initially, the company received Pre-Seed financing funds from STARTUP.TIROL (previously CAST, Center for Academic Spin-offs Tyrol), Tyrol, and from the Austria Wirtschaftsservice GmbH (aws – the Austrian Government Promotional Bank).
ViraT was funded by EMBL Ventures, the Boehringer Ingelheim Venture Fund (BIVF), and the Empl foundation, as well as by the aws through its Venture-Capital-Initiative and Seedfinancing program and by the Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FFG) through several programs.
The company currently has 19 employees.
FinSMEs
13/09/2018