Strides Pharma board approves USD 15 million investment in Stelis Biopharma

New Delhi: Strides Pharma Science Thursday said its board has approved plans to invest another USD 15 million in its biotech arm Stelis Biopharma. The company's board has approved participation in the Series B fundraiser of Stelis Biopharma with a commitment of USD 15 million, Strides Pharma Science said in a regulatory filing.

The first close of the current fund raise is USD 35 million, of which Strides will commit USD 15 million and USD 20 million is from other existing shareholders, it added.

Stelis intends to raise a total of USD 100 million through the fund raising activity.

Strides currently own 36.25 per cent stake in Stelis.

"With the first close of Series B, Stelis would have raised an equity capital of USD 114 million of which Strides would have invested USD 37 million for an effective ownership of 38 per cent," the company said.

Headquartered in India, Strides Pharma Science Limited(Formerly Strides Shasun Limited) is a pharmaceutical company with a major focus on development and manufacture of IP-led niche finished dosage formulations. It is also among the world's largest manufacturers of soft gelatin capsules.

Stelis, headquartered in Bengaluru, India, is a vertically integrated biopharmaceutical company with R&D, process scale-up and end-to-end manufacturing capabilities from biological drug substance to aseptic fill-finish in various injectable formats.

Stelis has completed the construction of its modern state of the art biopharma manufacturing facility at Bengaluru. The Drug product block of this facility is in the final stages of validation and is expected to go commercial for manufacturing and high end CDMO services in the Q4 FY19. The Drug substance block will be commercially available by the end of Q1 FY20.

With regulatory filing milestones achieved for two key assets of osteoporosis drugs, Stelis is poised to emerge as an
important player in the near term in the biopharma space.