Adding to the spree of private equity investments in the Indian pharmaceutical sector, India Life Sciences Fund III has invested ₹100 crore in Inventia Healthcare Ltd.
Inventia, with its R&D centre and manufacturing facilities close to Mumbai, develops and manufactures oral solid formulations. The company is also venturing into injectables and nutraceuticals.
“This infusion of funds will be used as growth capital for our pharma and nutraceutical business, and further strengthen our balance sheet through deleveraging and accelerate our goal of becoming a debt-free company,” said Janak Shah, chairman and managing director of Inventia.
According to Sumit Gupta, director at InvAscent, the investment adviser to India Life Sciences Fund III, the fund chose to invest in Inventia because of multiple factors that differentiate it from others, such as strong R&D, world-class manufacturing infrastructure and strong regulatory compliance capabilities.
“During the covid pandemic, the company’s business proved to be resilient as many of the company’s products are used to treat chronic diseases like diabetes and CNS (central nervous system) disorders,” said Gupta. “New initiatives such as nutraceuticals and injectables are also expected to gain traction in the next few years.”
India Life Sciences Fund III, which has a corpus of $250 million, provides growth capital to pharma, healthcare, animal health and medtech businesses.
This is the second private equity fund to invest in Inventia Healthcare. PE firm Jacob Ballas had invested ₹90 crore in Inventia Healthcare between 2008 and 2009.