DBV Technologies, a France-based allergy treatment company, which was the first deal done by Shire Therapeutics' corporate venturing unit, also secures its first portfolio company flotation in Paris.

France-based allergy treatment company DBV Technologies, the first company backed by UK and US-listed pharmaceutical company Shire Therapeutics’s corporate venturing unit, raised €41m ($54m) in its flotation on March 31.

DBV sold nearly 4.6 million shares on NYSE Euronext Paris at €8.86 per share, giving it a market capitalisation of about €118.7m. The deal is understood to be the first flotation from Shire’s portfolio.

Lead managers and bookrunners of the initial public offering were Societe Generale and Gilbert Dupont. The co-lead was Natixis and the IPO was also advised by Allegra Finance and Eumedix.

DBV raised $25.5m in its series C round last year from a group including Shire in its first corporate venturing deal.  

The C round was co-led by new investors InnoBio Fund and Lundbeckfond Ventures. InnoBio is a fund managed by venture capital (VC) firm CDC Entreprises and sponsored by the French state’s sovereign fund FSI and pharmaceutical companies, including Sanofi Aventis, GlaxoSmithKline, Roche, Novartis, Pfizer, Lilly, Ipsen, Takeda and Boehringer-Ingelheim. Lundbeckfond is the Denmark-based Lundbeck Foundation’s life sciences investment entity under Lundbeckfond Invest, which owns 70% of the shares of drugs company Lundbeck.

Also in the C round as new investors were Shire and local VC ALTO Invest.

The round was completed by VCs Sofinnova Partners, Apax Partners, Cap Décisif, and Creagro and allergies company ALK Abello as repeat investors.

In January 2009, DBV raised €6m in its series B round with ALK-Abello investing €2m and returning investor Sofinnova Partners the remainder.

Sofinnova had three years earlier invested €7m as lead in DBV’s €12.3m series A round.

Founded in Paris in 2002 by two paediatric gastroenterologists and allergists, DBV has developed a worldwide patented technology for drug delivery that delivers proteins and peptides into the skin.