European venture capital firm Sofinnova Partners said on November 17 that it raised 650 million euros, equivalent to $750 million, for a new fund that is going to support the present and upcoming life sciences companies.
It is well to be noted that as Sofinnova Partners raises $750mn, most of the cash out of it is going to be directed to the biotechnology startups that develop new drugs, whereas 20% to 30% of the cash is going towards the medical device manufacturers, confirmed one of the partners of the firm, Maina Bhaman. Apparently, the company has already funneled cash from the fund across five companies, and among them are Actithera, the radiopharmaceuticals startup, as well as Elevara Medicines, the inflammatory disease drugmaker.
The raise from Sofinnova happens to come at the time of a recent influx of capital into the biotech venture firms. After a slow start to the year, the new life sciences fund formation went on to rebound in the third quarter, with $6.1 billion being raised between July 2025 and September 2025 as compared to an overall $4.5 billion across the last six months, as per William Blair, the investment bank.
It is well to be noted that Omega Funds, Deerfield Management, and Atlas Venture happen to be among the firms that have closed certain new investment vehicles in 2025. Recently, Medicxi, which happens to be another European venture investor, went on to raise 500 million euros.
Sofinnova, especially, has been a big beneficiary. The new fund happens to be a part of over 1.2 billion euros in terms of fundraising.
Interestingly, Sofinnova happens to be one of the oldest and largest venture firms in Europe, which was established almost 55 years ago and now has over 4 billion euros in assets under management. Although the firm mostly happens to focus on forming as well as being the first investor when it comes to the young life sciences company, it also backs certain spinouts from larger pharmaceutical firms, especially the ones that are built around one asset, said Bhaman.
It is well to be noted that the European venture capital has gone ahead and announced that apart from the occurrence of Sofinnova Partners raises $750mn, which is in the news now, there are other seven investments across young therapeutics makers in 2025, which included the likes of Hemab Therapeutics, the blood disease drug developer; GlycoEra, the protein degrader startup; and T-Therapeutics, which happens to be a bispecifics specialist. Earlier in 2025, it also started
Biovelocita II, which is a new Europe-focused fund supported by Amgen, Bristol Myers Squibb as well as Pfizer Ventures.
Still, prior to the recent upturn, young companies largely went on to struggle to get funding in 2025. Investors showed a lower tolerance when it came to risk, hence making it quite challenging for certain first-in-class opportunities to get the attention. As per Bhaman, she thinks that the market is a bit wary of novelty right at this moment.
Interestingly, some of that hesitance comes from the recent regulatory as well as political upheaval. Threats pertaining to tariffs on pharmaceuticals, leadership turnover within the FDA, and inconsistency when it comes to the way rare disease treatments are regulated have gone on to press the maturing companies as well as their backers.
Bhaman adds that if they are doing a later-stage investment round, there is indeed going to be a pause. Specifically, across some of the rare diseases, gene therapy approaches require people to take into consideration whether, when one files, the FDA is indeed going to stick to what they had previously said or if something is going to change.
