Noble buys Sitka

Specialist healthcare investor Sitka, founded by former Schroders venture capitalist Gerard Tardy and Dr Louis Nisbet, who built up quoted biotech Xenova, has been bought by Noble Fund Managers.

Specialist healthcare investor Sitka, founded by former Schroders venture capitalist Gerard Tardy and Dr Louis Nisbet, who built up quoted biotech Xenova, has been bought by Noble Fund Managers.

Sitka runs Sitka Health Fund VCT, which has raised over £12 million since it was launched in 2001. The group’s investments include AIM-quoted Vectura, which is developing an inhaled drug to treat erectile dysfunction and Molecular Skincare, bought by AIM dermatology group York Pharma.

This means Noble now manages three separate trusts, having taken over the contract to manage T&G AIM VCT earlier this year. And Noble Fund Managers chief executive Henry Chaplin hinted that the group is continuing its hunt, saying: ‘We hope that this will be the first of several such acquisitions.’

Noble backed 2002’s AIM flotation of NeuTec Pharma, a developer of treatments for hospital infections, which has trebled since then. Sitka is currently raising £50 million for a second European institutional fund focused on healthcare-related ventures.

(8/11/05)