London, 06 October 2006- Morrison & Foerster’s Life Sciences team is advising on a triple of fundraisings for clients in the healthcare sector. 

The transactions are:

AmsterdamMolecular Therapeutics BV.  A cross-office team including Julian Thurston, James Gubbins, Matthew Edwards and Tara Sherbrooke in London and Gladys Monroy and Jie Zhou in Palo Alto advised Netherlands-based Amsterdam Molecular, on a €22 million series A fundraising led by ABN AMRO.  Advent Venture Partners, Gilde Healthcare Partners and Crédit Agricole Private Equity also participated in the round.  AMT has a pipeline of gene therapies in clinical and preclinical development. Among other things, the new funds will be used to take the clinical development of AMT’s lead product AMT-011, to treat lipoprotein lipase deficiency, from Phase II through to registration.

Ardana plc. A team including James Gubbins, Natalie Diep and Mark O’Donnell are advising Ardana, an emerging pharmaceutical company focused on the discovery, development and marketing of products to improve human reproductive health, on a follow on financing through a placing and open offer underwritten by Piper Jaffray.  Ardana has announced that it proposes to raise approximately £11 million, by way of a Placing and Open Offer of 9,585,380 New Ordinary Shares at 115 pence per Ordinary Share.  The team previously advised the company on its successful initial public offering on the Official List and related £21 million fundraising. (http://www.ardana.co.uk/)

Oxford BioMedica plc. A cross-practice team including corporate attorneys James Gubbins, Natalie Diep and Georgie Wiseman; partnering specialists Julian Thurston and James Ryan; and tax partner Trevor James, advised Oxford BioMedica, a leading gene therapy company, on a collaboration agreement and related share subscription agreement.  The collaboration agreement is with The Foundation Fighting Blindness ("FFB") through its translational research arm National Neurovision Research Institute and will enable the development of a portfolio of gene therapy products for the treatment of eye diseases.  The first product in the expanded portfolio will be StarGen™ for the treatment of Stargardt disease, the most common juvenile degenerative retinal disease.  Under the terms of the collaboration agreement and a separate share subscription agreement, FFB and a consortium of investors will make an undisclosed upfront payment and will also subscribe for up to $3.9m of Oxford BioMedica ordinary shares to fund the development of StarGen. (http://www.oxfordbiomedica.co.uk)