Aisling Capital, a life sciences-focused private equity firm, is raising $400 million for its fourth fund, with a hard cap of $500 million, Fortune reports.
The New York firm has a vast portfolio of healthcare and life sciences startups, with some notable players including antifungal immunotherapy player Cidara Therapeutics; the much buzzed-about sepsis diagnostics maker T2 Biosystems; and Seragon Pharmaceuticals, which was acquired by Roche last year for $1.7 billion. It also had a healthy exit with Aimmune Therapeutics, which makes immunotherapy products for food allergies. It went public last week and has a $1 billion valuation.
A document published on the Pennsylvania Public School Employees’ Retirement System indicated the fund has a $500 million hard cap, and that PSERS will commit $50 million.
This fund is actually smaller than its third, which launched in 2009 and raised $650 million. This could stem from a bit of a leadership shakeup, as Fortune points out: “One explanation might be that the core team is a bit smaller, with founder Dennis Purcell transitioning into a senior advisor role and the recent departures of partners Anthony Sun and Brett Zbar,” it says. The firm just hired Scott Braunstein, a senior VP at Pacira Pharmaceuticals, as its operating partner.
Aisling Capital’s internal rates of return for its previous three funds have been fairly strong:
- Fund 1 (2002), 20%
- Fund II (2005), 5.9%
- Fund III (2008), 25.3%
A Deep-dive Into Specialty Pharma
A specialty drug is a class of prescription medications used to treat complex, chronic or rare medical conditions. Although this classification was originally intended to define the treatment of rare, also termed “orphan” diseases, affecting fewer than 200,000 people in the US, more recently, specialty drugs have emerged as the cornerstone of treatment for chronic and complex diseases such as cancer, autoimmune conditions, diabetes, hepatitis C, and HIV/AIDS.
There’s no record yet of Aisling Capital’s fourth fund in any SEC filings. The company has yet to respond to MedCity News outreach for comment.
[IMAGE: Flickr user AMagill]
