New Delhi, June 9 -- Private equity firm Advent International said Monday it has agreed to invest $$175 million (Rs 1,500 crore) to pick up a significant minority stake in Felix Pharmaceuticals Pvt Ltd, an Ireland-headquartered animal healthcare company that operates manufacturing facilities in India through a subsidiary.
Advent will make the investment via a primary infusion and secondary transactions, it said in a statement. It didn't disclose other financial terms.
The announcement comes almost a year after VCCircle reported in July 2024 that Felix was looking to raise funding and that some of its existing investors could exit as part of the process.
"Healthcare has been a long-standing focus for us, and strong parallels we see between success in human Gx globally and emerging opportunity in animal health Gx," said Shweta Jalan, managing partner at Advent. Gx is a pharmaceutical industry term that refers to generic medicines.
Felix Pharma is a developer and manufacturer of off-patent medicines for companion animals. It manufactures and supplies to distributors and other branded generic drug players for private labelling, particularly in the US. With a portfolio of 14 approved products from the USFDA and many more under review and development, Felix claims that it has the widest portfolio of products in the industry.
"Felix is well-positioned to lead this space with its strong leadership, broad portfolio, and robust R&D and commercial capabilities. Its rapid growth and high customer satisfaction make it a differentiated platform," Jalan added.
Felix was founded in 2015 by McKinsey alum Neeraj Agrawal, Sir Jonathan Symonds, Chair of GSK and with 30 years of experience in global pharmaceuticals; and Dr Shumeet Banerji, ex-CEO of Booz-Allen.
Pankaj Patwari, Managing Director at Advent, said, "Felix has an opportunity to shape the companion animal health generics market. The industry is nascent, with less than 10% share held by generic players, providing a long-term growth opportunity. There are lot of learnings we can bring from our other pharma experiences and we are excited to partner with a like-minded founder, Neeraj, to work towards building the #1 generic animal health company globally."
The company achieved its first US FDA approval in 2020. It has now scaled to a 14-commercialised product portfolio and has several others in advanced pipeline stages. It has a USFDA-approved oral solid facility dedicated to animal health products and an injectable facility that is expected to be ready by Q3 2025.
Guggenheim Securities acted as the financial advisors for Advent, and Lincoln International acted as the financial advisors for Felix. JSA, Aurthur Cox and A&L Goodbody were the legal advisors on the transaction.
Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from VC Circle.