Kenny Walker-Durrant

Kenny Walker-Durrant is a partner in Goodwin’s Technology and Life Sciences groups, specializing in private equity, venture capital financings, M&A, and IPO transactions. Mr. Walker-Durrant advises clients on a broad range of corporate matters, with a particular focus on emerging growth companies and venture capital investors in the life sciences, healthcare, and technology sectors. Mr. Walker-Durrant advises clients through every stage of the corporate life cycle.

Mr. Walker-Durrant has been recognised as a Key Lawyer at Goodwin for his venture capital work by the Legal 500.

Mr. Walker-Durrant’s representative experience includes:

Exits

M&A Transactions

• Profile Pensions, a UK digital pension adviser, on its proposed acquisition by Moneyfarm
• Advised DJS Antibodies on its acquisition by AbbVie (NYSE: ABBV)
• ReViral Limited in respect of its agreement to be acquired by Pfizer, Inc. for up to $525 million
• Sportpursuit and its selling shareholders on the sale of a majority stake to BD-Capital
• Fixflo (aka Tactile) and its selling shareholders on the sale to Aareon AG
• Symprove and its selling shareholders on the sale of a majority stake to BD-Capital
• Enterprise Therapeutics and its selling shareholders on the demerger and subsequent sale of its TMEM16A potentiator portfolio to Roche for upfront consideration of £75 million and significant potential milestone payments (having previously advised the lead investors in the series B investment into Enterprise)
• Capital Z Partners in its acquisition of a majority stake in UK based Prestige Insurance
• Advising Springer Nature on its acquisition of the British Journal of Cancer from CRUK
• Prexton Therapeutics and its selling shareholders, including M Ventures, in its sale to global pharmaceutical company H. Lundbeck A/S for up to €905 million*
• The shareholders on the sale of Stat-Dx, a privately owned Spanish diagnostics company, to QIAGEN for $191 million (including milestones)*
• The selling shareholders in Ziarco Group in connection with the sale of the company to Novartis*
• XO1 is a UK-based company developing Ichorcumab, a novel anticoagulant to treat Thrombosis, in its sale to Janssen Pharmaceuticals*

IPO

• Advised Centessa Pharmaceuticals on its $379.5 million initial public offering on Nasdaq
• Advised Achilles Therapeutics on its $175.5 million initial public offering on Nasdaq
• Advised Bicycle Therapeutics on its $60 million initial public offering on Nasdaq

VC Transactions

Investor

• Advised Captify a leading search intelligence platform, on its sale to SFW Capital Partners
• Advised one of the principal investors in its participating as part of a syndicate investing $500 million of new equity in Fidelis Holdings Limited
• Advised Forbion Growth Opportunities Fund and Sofinnova Investments as the lead investors on a Series C investment of $148 million into Gyroscope Therapeutics
• Advised Y Combinator’s Continuity growth fund as lead investor on a Series F investment of £113 million ($144 million) and its participation in a Series G investment of £60m into Monzo Bank
• Advised Jeito Capital as lead investor on a Series C investment of $92 million into Pulmocide
• Advised Andera Partners and LSP on a Series B investment of £65 million into Artios Pharma
• Advised Lakestar on a series B investment of £29 million in Eigen Technologies; a series B investment of £15.49 million in Impala; and a series A investment of £10.2 million in Yapily
• Advised LSP on a Series C investment of $28 million of Lumeon
• Advised OMERS Ventures Europe on a Series B investment of €18.5 million of FirstVet
• Advised EQT on a Series A investment of £12 million of Peanut App
• Advised Index Ventures on a Series A investment of $11.5 million of Birdie

Company

• Advised Centessa Pharmaceuticals on its $250 million financing round in conjunction with its acquisition of 10 biotech companies
• Advised Achilles Therapeutics, a Stevenage based biopharmaceutical company developing personalised cancer immunotherapies, on the completion of its £100 million Series B financing, which is one of the largest growth stage venture rounds for a UK biotech company in 2019 and its £52.7 million Series C financing
• Advised Quanta Dialysis Technologies on its series C funding round raising $48 million
• Advised Bicycle Therapeutics Limited on its £40 million Series B equity financing round led by Vertex* and on its $27.9 million series B2 equity financing led by Tybourne
• Advised Exscientia Limited (an AI-driven drug discovery company) on its $26 million series B equity financing round. The Investors were Celgene Corporation, GT Healthcare Capital Partners and Evotec AG
• Advised Grip on its $13 million Series A equity financing led by Kennet Partners

*Denotes experience prior to joining Goodwin.