Syncona, a global life science investor focused on creating, building and scaling global leaders in life science, today announces that an agreement has been reached for the sale of its portfolio company Clade Therapeutics (“Clade”) to Century Therapeutics (“Century”), a biotechnology company developing induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC)-derived cell therapies, for up to USD $45m (£35.9 million).
Syncona committed $30m to Clade in August 2021 alongside a syndicate of specialist investors as part of a $87m Series A financing.
Since its foundation, Clade has made significant scientific progress. The company requires significant capital to progress to the clinic and despite the positive scientific progress to-date, access to significant third-party capital has been challenging.
Against this challenging market backdrop, Syncona has prioritised capital allocation to its assets that can deliver clinical data in the near term. Alongside this, Syncona has also worked with its portfolio companies to widen financing syndicates, streamline pipelines and budgets and explored creative financing solutions and consolidations.
The sale of Clade to Century is in line with this approach.
The total potential consideration of up to $45m includes up-front consideration of $35m in a combination of cash and shares in Century. Future milestones have the potential of generating further consideration and if received in full will result in a further $10m in consideration.
For its 22% ownership position in Clade, Syncona anticipates up-front consideration at closing to be $9.3m, an estimated £16.1m write down from the 31 December 2023 valuation of £23.5m.
Chris Hollowood, CEO of Syncona Investment Management Limited, said: “Against a challenging market backdrop over the last 18 months, Syncona has prioritised capital allocation towards assets that can achieve clinical data in the near term. The sale of Clade to Century is in line with this approach. The market conditions the company has faced have meant that it has been increasingly important for Clade to access broader capabilities and improve capital efficiency to take their technology forward. This transaction enables this.”