Munich/ Berlin/ Foster City, Calif. (USA) — YPOG, with two sepa­rate teams, provi­ded compre­hen­sive legal advice to the share­hol­ders Venrock Health­care Capi­tal Part­ners and Evotec SE on the sale of the biotech company Tubu­lis to Gilead for a total purchase price (inclu­ding all earn-out payments) of USD 5 billion. — The purchase price consists of an imme­dia­tely paya­ble cash compo­nent of USD 3.15 billion and perfor­mance-based payments of up to USD 1.85 billion. The tran­sac­tion is expec­ted to close in the second quar­ter of 2026. 

Munich-based Tubu­lis is a clini­cal-stage biotech­no­logy company focu­sed on the deve­lo­p­ment of next-gene­ra­tion anti­body-drug conju­ga­tes (ADCs). The company’s proprie­tary plat­form tech­no­lo­gies enable the targe­ted deli­very of highly potent drugs to tumor cells. Leading deve­lo­p­ment programs include TUB-040, an ADC for the treat­ment of ovarian cancer and other solid tumors, which is curr­ently in clini­cal deve­lo­p­ment. In addi­tion, Tubu­lis has a tech­no­logy plat­form that is geared towards the deve­lo­p­ment of new ADC gene­ra­ti­ons and offers broad appli­ca­tion poten­tial in oncology. 

“The agree­ment to acquire Tubu­lis is a signi­fi­cant mile­stone for Gilead in the field of onco­logy. The company brings a clini­cal-stage drug candi­date that repres­ents a poten­tial new treat­ment option for ovarian cancer, as well as a next-gene­ra­tion ADC plat­form and a promi­sing early-stage pipe­line,” said Daniel O’Day, Chair­man and Chief Execu­tive Offi­cer of Gilead Sciences.

Evotec first inves­ted in Tubu­lis in the Series B finan­cing round in May 2022 and then again in the Series B2 finan­cing round in March 2024. Venrock most recently supported the company as lead inves­tor in the Series C finan­cing round.

“The sale of Tubu­lis marks another important mile­stone for the Euro­pean biotech­no­logy indus­try. The tran­sac­tion under­lines the contin­ued high inte­rest of stra­te­gic inves­tors in inno­va­tive onco­logy plat­forms and shows that Euro­pean rese­arch can be successfully trans­la­ted into global tran­sac­tions,” says Dr. Martin Scha­per, Part­ner at YPOG.

Tubu­lis is deve­lo­ping custo­mi­zed anti­body-drug conju­ga­tes with outstan­ding biophy­si­cal proper­ties that have demons­tra­ted sustained tumor deli­very and long-lasting anti­tu­mor acti­vity in precli­ni­cal models as well as in initial clini­cal proof-of-concept studies in plati­num-resistant ovarian cancer. The two lead programs from the growing pipe­line, TUB-040, targe­ting NaPi2b, and TUB-030, targe­ting 5T4, are curr­ently being evalua­ted in the clinic in high-risk solid tumors. Tubu­lis will soli­dify its leader­ship posi­tion by conti­nuing to drive inno­va­tion in all areas of ADC design utili­zing its proprie­tary plat­form tech­no­lo­gies. — www.tubulis.com

About Venrock Health­care Capi­tal Partners

Venrock Health­care Capi­tal Part­ners (VHCP) is a health­care-focu­sed venture capi­tal fund group concen­t­ra­ting on late-stage invest­ments. It invests prima­rily in publicly traded small cap and priva­tely held late stage compa­nies — parti­cu­larly in the health­care and life scien­ces sectors, with a special focus on biotech­no­logy. VHCP focu­ses on compa­nies that deve­lop and commer­cia­lize inno­va­tive products and tech­no­lo­gies. — www.venrock.com.

About Evotec

Evotec is a life science company driving the future of drug disco­very and deve­lo­p­ment. By combi­ning scien­ti­fic inno­va­tion with AI-enab­led tech­no­lo­gies and advan­ced plat­forms, Evotec acce­le­ra­tes the deve­lo­p­ment of new thera­pies in a more effi­ci­ent, precise and scalable way.
Evotec’s capa­bi­li­ties span small mole­cu­les, biolo­gics, cell thera­pies and rela­ted moda­li­ties and are supported by proprie­tary plat­forms such as Mole­cu­lar Pati­ent Data­ba­ses, PanO­mics and iPSC-based dise­ase models. Evotec colla­bo­ra­tes with the worl­d’s leading phar­maceu­ti­cal compa­nies, nume­rous biotech compa­nies, acade­mic insti­tu­ti­ons and other health­care partners.
With a broad port­fo­lio of proprie­tary rese­arch and deve­lo­p­ment projects, Evotec focu­ses on key thera­peu­tic areas such as onco­logy, cardio­vas­cu­lar and meta­bo­lic dise­a­ses, neuro­logy and immu­no­logy. The Company employs more than 4,800 people world­wide at sites in Europe and the US. — www.evotec.com

Advi­sor Venrock Health­care Capi­tal Part­ners: YPOG

Dr. Benja­min Ullrich (Lead, Tran­sac­tions), Part­ner, Berlin
Dr. Emma Peters (Tran­sac­tions), Asso­cia­ted Part­ner, Berlin
Dr. Oliver Junk (Tran­sac­tions), Asso­cia­ted Part­ner, Cologne

Team Evotec: YPOG

Dr. Martin Scha­per (Co-Lead, Tran­sac­tions), Part­ner, Berlin
Dr. Johan­nes Janning (Co-Lead, Tran­sac­tions), Part­ner, Cologne
Ciro D’Ame­lio (Tran­sac­tions), Senior Asso­ciate, Berlin

YPOG advi­sed Venrock on this tran­sac­tion toge­ther with the US law firm Cooley LLP.

About YPOG

YPOG stands for You + Part­ners of Game­ch­an­gers and forward-looking tax and legal advice. The firm advi­ses compa­nies focu­sed on future tech­no­lo­gies with the aim of using change as an oppor­tu­nity and jointly crea­ting opti­mal solu­ti­ons. The YPOG team offers compre­hen­sive exper­tise in the areas of Funds, Tax, Tran­sac­tions, Corpo­rate, Banking, Regu­la­tory + Finance, IP/IT/Data Protec­tion, Liti­ga­tion as well as Corpo­rate Crime + Compli­ance + Inves­ti­ga­ti­ons. YPOG is one of the leading addres­ses in Germany for venture capi­tal, private equity, fund struc­tu­ring and appli­ca­ti­ons of distri­bu­ted ledger tech­no­logy (DLT) in finan­cial services. The firm and its part­ners are regu­larly reco­gni­zed by renow­ned publi­ca­ti­ons such as JUVE, Best Lawy­ers, Cham­bers and Part­ners, Leaders League and Legal 500. YPOG employs more than 180 expe­ri­en­ced lawy­ers, tax advi­sors and tax specia­lists as well as a notary in its offices in Berlin, Hamburg, Colo­gne, Munich, Cambridge and London. —- www.ypog.law