Abingworth LLP (formerly ''Abingworth Management Ltd.'') is a transatlantic bioscience investment firm founded in 1973 by a pair of

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

stockbrokers,

Peter Dicks Peter F. Dicks (born 1942) is a London-based investment manager and venture capitalist. He was the co-founder of Abingworth PLC, one of the earlier venture capital funds in Europe. He is also the former chairman of Sportingbet PLC, one of the ...

and Hon. Anthony Montagu. Abingworth had initially sought to extend its investments into the biotechnology industry in the late 1980s, and has subsequently been investing in life science and healthcare services companies since at least 2001, and had expanded to include information technology firm investments by 2016. In August 2022, Abingworth was acquired by

The Carlyle Group The Carlyle Group is a multinational private equity, alternative asset management and financial services corporation based in the United States with $376 billion of assets under management. It specializes in private equity, real assets, and pri ...

Offices

In addition to its base in London, the company had a second office in

Palo Alto Palo Alto (; Spanish for "tall stick") is a charter city in the northwestern corner of Santa Clara County, California, United States, in the San Francisco Bay Area, named after a coastal redwood tree known as El Palo Alto. The city was estab ...

as of 2001. By 2016, the Palo Alto office had been replaced by an office in Menlo Park, and an additional offices had been established in

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

and

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge bec ...

Investments

The company's investment strategy involves the establishment of ''funds'' with particular investment targets in mind. For instance, the "Bioventures VI" fund was "closed" in March 2014, having accrued $375 million, reportedly exceeding the "target" for the fund. A key element in the firm's investment strategy is the ''exit,'' which signifies the acquisition of or initial public offering by a company in which the firm has invested. Prior to 1987, Abingworth had made investments, considered by 2016 to have been successful, in

Apple An apple is an edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus domestica''). Apple fruit tree, trees are agriculture, cultivated worldwide and are the most widely grown species in the genus ''Malus''. The tree originated in Central Asia, wh ...

and

Silicon Graphics Silicon Graphics, Inc. (stylized as SiliconGraphics before 1999, later rebranded SGI, historically known as Silicon Graphics Computer Systems or SGCS) was an American high-performance computing manufacturer, producing computer hardware and soft ...

. The firm created its biotech investment arm in 1987. Among the first investments was in Immunology Ltd, which was later renamed to Cantab Pharmaceuticals. In 2000, the company joined several others in providing funding for Oxagen. In the early 2000s, the firm invested in and saw forward to

initial public offering An initial public offering (IPO) or stock launch is a public offering in which shares of a company are sold to institutional investors and usually also to retail (individual) investors. An IPO is typically underwritten by one or more investment ...

a number of firms, including Dicerna Pharmaceuticals and

Clovis Oncology Clovis Oncology is an American pharmaceutical company which mainly markets products for treatment in oncology. Clovis was founded in 2009 and is headquartered in Boulder, Colorado. The company is a publicly traded company on NASDAQ under the ...

. The firm has also provided funding to support the acquisition of

Algeta Algeta ASAALGETA:NO was founded in 1997 by Roy H. Larsen and Øyvind S. Bruland in Oslo, Norway as a private biotechnology and pharmaceutical company. The company’s research and development focus lies in the field of alpha-particle emitting ra ...

Bayer Bayer AG (, commonly pronounced ; ) is a German multinational corporation, multinational pharmaceutical and biotechnology company and one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world. Headquartered in Leverkusen, Bayer's areas of busi ...

and Avila Therapeutics by

Celgene Celgene Corporation is a pharmaceutical company that makes cancer and immunology drugs. Its major product is Revlimid ( lenalidomide), which is used in the treatment of multiple myeloma, and also in certain anemias. The company is incorporated in ...

. In the Algeta case, this was the very first of the firm's venture investments in public equities, dating to February 2009. In 2013, the firm realised an exit from investment in Syntaxin Ltd when it was acquired by

Ipsen Ipsen is a French biopharmaceutical company headquartered in Paris, France, with a focus on transformative medicines in three therapeutic areas: oncology, rare disease and neuroscience. Ipsen is one of the world’s top 15 biopharmaceutical com ...

SA. In 2013, the firm invested in Effector Therapeutics. It also, in January 2013, set up Avillion Group Partners, a clinical phase III co-development accelerator, with Massachusetts-based Clarus Ventures. Following from this, Avillion partnered with

Pfizer Pfizer Inc. ( ) is an American multinational pharmaceutical and biotechnology corporation headquartered on 42nd Street in Manhattan, New York City. The company was established in 1849 in New York by two German entrepreneurs, Charles Pfizer ...

on a label expansion effort for Bosulif. In 2014, the firm invested in two ophthalmic companies, Avedro and Gensight Biologics.

Corporate details

, Abingworth had less than 10 employees. and the company managed $300 million across several funds and had provided capital to sixty life science companies.. By 2014, the managed value of one of the firm's ten funds was $375 million. , there were two

managing partner A partner in a law firm, accounting firm, consulting firm, or financial firm is a highly ranked position, traditionally indicating co-ownership of a partnership in which the partners were entitled to a share of the profits as "equity partners". The ...

s, Timothy J. Haines and Kurt von Emster. and the firm had grown to over 20 employees. "Special partner" David Leathers joined the firm in 1987, having left

Rothschild Rothschild () is a name derived from the German ''zum rothen Schild'' (with the old spelling "th"), meaning "with the red sign", in reference to the houses where these family members lived or had lived. At the time, houses were designated by sign ...

. James Abell has held the post of chief financial officer since at least 2001. The company also has a board of directors, which consisted of two members in 2016, Stephen Bunting and Theodore Clark. Bunting had been a managing partner from 2002 to at least 2014, having joined Abingworth in 1987 after leaving Rothschild with Leathers. By 2014, Bunting had been involved in the establishment each of the ten (at that time) of the company's life science investment funds.

Acquisition

In August 2022, Abingworth was acquired by

. At the time of the acquisition, Abingworth had approximately $2 billion in assets under management.

References

External links

* {{Official website, http://www.abingworth.com/ Companies based in the City of Westminster British companies established in 1973 Venture capital firms of the United Kingdom 1973 establishments in England 2022 mergers and acquisitions