Press Release
February 16, 2021

Goodwin Advises Centessa Pharmaceuticals On $250 Million Financing Round In Conjunction With Its Acquisition Of 10 Biotech Companies

A global Life Sciences team advised Centessa Pharmaceuticals Limited on the completion of its $250 million financing round in parallel with the simultaneous acquisition by Centessa of 10 private biotech companies across 4 jurisdictions (UK, USA, Germany and France) that will each continue to develop its assets with oversight from the Centessa management team.

The crossover was led by General Atlantic, and co-led by Vida Ventures and Janus Henderson Investors and is one of the largest European Biotech financing rounds to date. The acquisitions all involved portfolio companies of Medicxi Ventures, each engaging in the research and development of an array of novel therapeutics across the healthcare sector.

Centessa is a next-generation biopharmaceutical company that aims to reshape the traditional drug development process. The company applies an asset-centric R&D model at scale to advance a portfolio of highly validated programs led by industry leading teams. Each program is developed by an Centessa subsidiary and supported by a centralized infrastructure and the Centessa management team. The company is headquartered in Cambridge, MA.

Medicxi Ventures is a leading European life sciences investment fund that invests in early and late stage biopharma companies across the full healthcare sector, from discovery to late stage. Medicxi was established by the former Index Ventures life sciences team and the team has been investing in life sciences for over 20 years. Medicxi Ventures carries forward the life science investment activity that was previously part of Index.

The deal team was led by Graham Defries and Mitchell Bloom.