RVC Biofund
About the Fund
The concept of the RVC Biopharmaceutical Investments Ltd. (RVC Biofund Ltd.) was approved by the Board of Directors of RVC, in June, 2010. The RVC Biofund Ltd. began its operations in early 2011.
The need to create the RVC Biofund Ltd. has been brought about by the low fraction (less than 1%) of domestic medications on the Russian pharmaceutical market. The lack of an infrastructure for developing pharmaceutical and medical startups in Russia necessitates the expenditure of a significant fraction (50 to 80%) of Russian investment resources to pay for foreign services. The strategic goal of RVC Biofund Ltd. is to assist in creating a geographically distributed cluster of innovative and infrastructural (bio)pharmaceutical companies in Russia by introducing the market methods of investment and financial cooperation into Russian practice.
In this connection, RVC Biofund Ltd. invests in service companies in the cluster and in biotechnological startups, and also facilitates the creation of an ecosystem for the generation and growth of the largest possible number of biotechnological projects. The Fund focuses primarily on supporting innovative biopharmaceutical companies and service companies that offer contract laboratory, information-analytical, and consulting services to companies in the biotechnological sectors and to the pharmaceutical and medical industry.
The mission of Biofund is ensuring the implementation of the following objectives:
- increase the number of service companies rendering commercial services worldwide to small biopharmaceutical innovative companies that have received support from seed funds and venture investors;
- reduction in expenditure on the part of the logistical components of business models of innovative biopharm-companies working in the Russian market;
- accelerated shift to self-purchase of companies in the service infrastructure of technological enterprise in the biopharm sector.
- formation of an effective market mechanism for high-tech replacement of imports of biotechnological, pharmaceutical and medical substances and change in the nomenclature of medicinal preparations produced within the Russian Federation, including a substantial increase in the fraction of innovative preparations;
- reduction of investment risks for all project participants associated with the long-term development and commercialization of medicinal substances;
- creation of an infrastructure for developing innovative preparations in the biotechnological, pharmaceutical, and medical sectors of industry using modern technological platforms;
- involvement of large and medium-sized Russian pharmaceutical producer companies and stimulation of localisation, within the RF, of high-tech production of medicinal preparations, direct development and production of innovative medicinal preparations, and support for the export of Russian biotechnological, pharmaceutical, and medical sectors;
- increase the competitiveness of the domestic biotechnological, pharmaceutical, and medical industry by bringing Russian standards for the development and production of medicinal substances into alignment with international requirements;
- involvement of private investment resources in developing the domestic biotechnological, pharmaceutical, and medical industry, as well as in the commercial infrastructure companies;
- increase in the expertise of Russian specialists working in the biopharmaceutical service sector, up to the level of the best international practices; providing an influx of young specialists into the biotechnological, pharmaceutical, and medical industry; assisting the attraction of Russian specialists with international experience to cooperation and work in Russian innovative companies.
Basic parameters of the Fund
- Full name: RVC Biopharmaceutical Investments Ltd.
- Abbreviated name: RVC Biofund Ltd.
- Size of established capital: 800 million rubles.
- Planned size of established capital: 1.5 billion rubles.
- Duration of the Biofund’s operation: unlimited (without termination date).
- The Biofund co-invests resources together with private investors.
- The Biofund offers not more than 75% of the volume of the investment demand of service companies and not more than 50% of the volume of the investment demand of innovative biopharmaceutical companies in cash or in kind or in the form of rights to the results of intellectual activities, totalling (in equivalent) not more than 200 million rubles during the first round of investment.
- The Biofund may use any judicial and financial transaction conditions permitted by the current legislation of the Russian Federation.
- The Biofund examines projects independently from the initiators or authors of projects as well as from private investors (without interaction with the system of venture partners).
- Investment decisions are made by the Biofund’s Investment Committee (management).
Investment Portfolio
Manufacture of microchips for determining blood immunoglobulins.
Development and commercialization of "ExoAthlet" exoskeleton
A company rendering a broad spectrum of services in selecting, processing, characterizing, storing,