Children’s medicine startup secures £4m

Proveca is a UK-based pharmaceutical company, which focuses on developing drugs to treat chronic medical conditions in children. Its latest investment of £4m takes the company’s total raised to £7.27m. This round, backed by GM&C Life Sciences Fund and Kreos Capital, is part-equity and part-loan. Proveca has also received a total of £600k in Innovate UK grants. Nine different grants – all under Innovate UK’s Emerging and Enabling mandate – make up this figure. 

Proveca’s primary focus is on developing and licensing off-patent children’s medicines. Off-patent medicines are cheaper and more widely available than those restricted by intellectual property laws; Proveca intends to find suitable candidates and develop them further, ensuring that they meet the legal criteria for administration to children, and then license the drugs under European law to insulate them from market competition.

As of its fundraising in August 2016, the company’s pre-money valuation was £2.84m – slightly below the average (£3.13m) for seed-stage companies in the pharmaceuticals sector. This recent fundraising is above the average (£1.93m) in size, however. Proveca’s valuation change (in the six months since its previous raise) remains to be seen.