The Fonds’ third investment is in the Montréal-based company’s IPO
Montréal, June 23, 2020 – Fonds de solidarité FTQ invested C$8.2 million (US$6 million) in the initial public offering (IPO) of Repare Therapeutics (Nasdaq: RPTX), a Montréal-based precision oncology company. During two financing rounds, in 2017 and 2019, the Fonds had invested a total of $9.75 million in the company.
“Thanks in large part to local scientists’ exceptional talent in drug development, Repare Therapeutics is proof that an innovative company based on an oncology platform can be launched right here in Montréal. Versant Ventures’ role as a company creator since 2015 also shows the importance of attracting foreign investments to Québec. We’re proud to partner again with Repare, Versant and others to support this IPO,” said Didier Leconte, Vice-President, Investments, Life Sciences and Funds of Funds, at Fonds de solidarité FTQ.
Repare Therapeutics is developing new, precision oncology drugs that target specific vulnerabilities of tumour cells. Its approach integrates insights from several fields of cell biology including DNA repair and synthetic lethality. Repare’s platform combines a proprietary, high throughput, CRISPR-enabled gene editing target discovery method with high-resolution protein crystallography, computational biology and clinical informatics.
Since 1989, the Fonds de solidarité FTQ has invested $1.6 billion to support the Québec life sciences sector, thereby contributing to the development of new drugs by its partner companies. Its life sciences team consists of nine members, including a senior scientific advisor.
About the Fonds de solidarité FTQ
The Fonds de solidarité FTQ is a capital development fund that channels the savings of Quebecers into investments. With $16.7 billion in net assets as at November 30, 2019, the Fonds supported more than 215,000 jobs. The Fonds has over 3,100 partner companies and upwards of 700,000 shareholders-savers.
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