Cooley Advises Immunocore on Largest European Private Life Sciences Financing on Record

LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM--(Marketwired - July 20, 2015) - Cooley advised Immunocore Limited on its $320 million (GBP £205 million) Series A financing round, the largest ever for a European biotech. The oversubscribed round includes new investors, Woodford Investment Management, Malin Corporation, Eli Lilly and RTW Investments, as well as a number of new and existing investors of Immunocore.

Immunocore is a world-leading biotechnology company developing novel T cell receptor (TCR)-based biological drugs to treat cancer, viral infections and autoimmune disease.

The team advising Immunocore included life sciences partners Nicola Maguire and John Wilkinson, corporate partners Marc Recht and Div Gupta and associates Aaron Archer, Alison Haggerty, Adam Lewington and Emma Kingston.

The proceeds will enable Immunocore to further accelerate its pipeline of ImmTACs (Immune mobilising mTCR Against Cancer). ImmTACs are a new class of bispecific biologics which have the potential to treat a broad range of solid tumours either as monotherapies or in combination with other therapies to create best in class treatment regimes. In addition to delivering on its well-established partnerships, Immunocore will focus, in particular, on progressing its lead proprietary programme, IMCgp100, which produced positive Phase I/IIa trial data in April 2015 in patients with advanced metastatic cutaneous and ocular melanoma.

About Cooley LLP

Clients partner with Cooley on transformative deals, complex IP and regulatory matters, and high-stakes litigation, where innovation meets the law.

Cooley has 850 lawyers across 12 offices in the United States, China and Europe.

About Immunocore

Immunocore is one of the world's leading biotechnology companies, with a highly innovative immuno-oncology platform technology called ImmTACs. ImmTACs are a novel class of biologic drugs based on the Company's proprietary T cell receptor (TCR) technology which have the potential to treat diseases with high unmet medical need including cancer, viral infections and autoimmune diseases. Immunocore, based on decades of world-leading scientific innovation in the discovery of HLA targets and T cell receptor technology, has a pipeline of wholly-owned and partnered ImmTAC programmes with robust clinical data, validated by collaborations with world-leading pharmaceutical companies. Immunocore aims to leverage the utility of its platform across a wide range of indications to become a Premier Biotech company and world-leader in its field.

Immunocore's world-leading science and strong IP position has attracted major pharmaceutical companies including Genentech, GlaxoSmithKline, MedImmune, the biologics division of AstraZeneca, via discovery collaborations, as well as a co-discovery and co-development partnership with Lilly. The Company has also entered into combination trials with its lead programme, IMCgp100 in melanoma, with Medimmune and Lilly. Founded in 2008 originally out of Oxford University and headquartered outside Oxford, Immunocore now has more than 155 staff. Immunocore is well funded and owned by a group of international private, institutional and strategic investors. For more information, please visit www.immunocore.com.