Summa Equity acquires Olink Proteomics
Summa Equity acquires Olink Proteomics, a Swedish life science company that has developed a unique technology for human biomarker discovery, targeting the global biopharma and academic research and discovery markets. Olink’s purpose is to enable precision medicine through proteomics, thereby contributing to advancing healthcare worldwide. Summa Equity is excited to support this development, and to continue building its base of investments within life science.
Summa Equity focuses on investments in companies that help solve global challenges. Olink Proteomics is providing a unique technology to vastly improve our understanding of proteins within the human body. Proteomics, i.e. the large scale study of proteins, is one of the most important areas for gaining insights in human biology and disease, as protein expression profiles are critical in reflecting states of health. The acquisition of Olink Proteomics is aligned with Summa Equity’s Changing Demographics theme and it supports the UN Sustainable Development Goal Target #3: “Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages”, by enabling improved treatment and patient outcomes across a large number of disease areas.
Olink Proteomics was founded in 2004, based on pioneering research at Uppsala University, under the oversight of Prof. Ulf Landegren and his team of researchers. The company has a unique technology for protein analysis, which provides substantial benefits over other existing technologies in the market by enabling a more efficient and precise analysis of much larger numbers of proteins. This technology improves understanding of the interaction of proteins and human disease, which is required to enable improved treatments within many clinical areas.
The company has grown very rapidly over the past years, quickly expanding its scope of activities across the global market for life science, with a growing footprint across North America, Europe and Asia. Olink Proteomics is headquartered in Uppsala, Sweden, but also has facilities in the US. Olink Proteomics has approximately 110 employees across its current locations.
”The scientific and business opportunities for Olink Proteomics are enormous, as its technology is radically transforming the market for proteomics, thus enabling improved patient treatment. We look forward to supporting the company in its ambition to continue investing in improved customer solutions, and its effort to roll out its technology on a world-wide basis,” said Tommi Unkuri, Partner at Summa Equity.
”We are very happy to have Summa Equity as our new owner. They have shown a deep understanding of our technology and the markets we are addressing. They will be able to support us in scaling up our operations across markets, and drive benefit for customers, patients and the research community,” said Jon Heimer, CEO of Olink Proteomics.
Summa Equity will be the majority shareholder in Olink Proteomics, whilst the management team and Ulf Landegren will remain as shareholders in the company. Summa Equity has been supported by a global team of advisors, including Moelis & Company LLC as financial advisor, White & Case as legal advisor, LEK Consulting as commercial advisor and KPMG as accounting advisor. J.P. Morgan Securities LLC served as Olink Proteomics’ financial advisor and Wiggin and Dana LLP and Lindahl served as its legal advisors.
For additional information, please contact:
Tommi Unkuri, Partner at Summa Equity, tommi.unkuri@summaequity.com
Jon Heimer, CEO of Olink Proteomics, jon.heimer@olink.com
About Summa Equity
Summa Equity is a lower mid-market Private Equity firm in the Nordics. It is a megatrend driven, thematic investment company focusing on Resource Efficiency, Changing Demographics and Tech-enabled Businesses. Summa Equity is amongst the first Private Equity firms to commit to the UN Sustainable Development Goals and its investments are aligned with these. Summa Equity was founded in 2016. www.summaequity.com
About Olink Proteomics
Swedish company Olink Proteomics is a global leader for analysis of protein biomarkers in the field of precision medicine. Future health will be significantly improved using biomarkers for disease prediction, monitoring and, diagnosis of patients with a higher degree of precision, allowing patient to get the right treatment at the right point in time. Olink’s proprietary Proximity Extension Assay (PEA) technology enables researchers to look at unparalleled numbers of proteins in one simple experiment allowing all medical fields to get new insights driving this important field forward. The team at Olink Proteomics is dedicated to supporting the research community with a rapidly growing high-quality, validated protein target library which in the next couple of years will cover the essential part of the blood proteome. With over half a million samples analyzed and a team of specialist data scientists, Olink also has the expertise to maximize the success of protein biomarker studies. Olink Proteomics is headquartered in Uppsala, Sweden, with a regional office and service laboratory for the U.S. organization in Watertown, MA. www.olink.com