Ackermans & van Haaren lead investor in DISCO Pharmaceuticals

Berlin/ Zurich — The Belgian invest­ment and holding company Acker­mans & van Haaren NV has inves­ted EUR 36 million in the biotech company DISCO Phar­maceu­ti­cals GmbH as co-lead inves­tor in a seed finan­cing round. Gleiss Lutz advi­sed Acker­mans & van Haaren NV compre­hen­si­vely on this transaction. 

Through its subsi­diary AvH Growth Capi­tal, Acker­mans & van Haaren will, subject to certain condi­ti­ons, invest up to EUR 9 million in seve­ral tran­ches and initi­ally hold a 12.4 percent stake.

DISCO Phar­maceu­ti­cals was foun­ded in May 2022 as a spin-off from ETH Zurich. With sites in Colo­gne (Germany) and Schlie­ren (Switz­er­land), DISCO Phar­maceu­ti­cals uses ground­brea­king proteo­mics tech­no­logy to map cancer cell surface­o­mes. The new funds will enable the further deve­lo­p­ment of seve­ral ADC drug candi­da­tes for small cell lung cancer and colo­rec­tal cancer through to IND-enab­­ling studies. 

About Acker­mans & van Haaren

Acker­mans & van Haaren is a diver­si­fied group of compa­nies that, among other things, provi­des growth finan­cing for sustainable compa­nies in various sectors. It is listed on Euron­ext Brussels and the BEL20 index. In 2024, the group gene­ra­ted a net profit of EUR 460 million with a turno­ver of EUR 7.6 billion and employed a total of over 24,000 people. — https://www.avh.be/en

Advi­sor to Acker­mans & van Haaren: Gleiss Lutz

Led by Dr. Martin Viciano Gofferje, part­ner (photo: Gleiss Lutz) and Dr. Chris­toph Prawit Meiss­ner (both M&A, both Berlin).

Malte Benfeldt, Konrad Jankie­wicz (both M&A), Dr. Enno Burk (Part­ner), Chris­toph Schoppe, Sophie Römer (all Health­care & Life Scien­ces), Dr. Rut Stein­hau­ser (Part­ner), Angela Tschech (both Employ­ment Law), Jan Felix Hinrichs (IP/Tech, all Berlin), Michael P. Clever (Real Estate Law, Frank­furt), Aylin Hoffs (Coun­sel, Foreign Trade Law, Düsseldorf).

Gleiss Lutz teams regu­larly advise inves­tors and compa­nies on large finan­cing rounds in inno­va­tive future-orien­­ted indus­tries such as biotech­no­logy, arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence and deep tech. Most recently, Gleiss Lutz advi­sed TRUMPF SE on the entry of inves­tors into its subsi­diary Q.ANT.