British International Investment

Adjuvant Global Health Technology Fund LP

GlobalNigeriaSwitzerlandGlobalWest AfricaConsumer - Health

The fund is focused on accelerating the development of medical innovations for historically overlooked public health challenges. Its goal is to save or improve millions of lives by bringing urgently needed drugs, vaccines, diagnostics, and medical devices to market.

This investment was made when British International Investment was named CDC Group.

Our investment

Description of the investment.

We invested in the fund alongside a coalition of conventional and catalytic investors, including traditional asset managers, multinational biopharmaceutical companies, and other development finance institutions, with the aim of investing in healthcare solutions for those who need it most.

Impact information

Applies to investments made from 2019 onwards. The tabs in this section define what we expect to achieve through the investment, assessing the potential impact of the investment against six dimensions of impact. You can find more details on our methodology of assessing impact here.

What?

Impact

Improve healthcare outcomes, reducing global maternal mortality rates (SDG 3.1); prevent deaths of new-borns and children under 5 (3.2); end the epidemics of AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria and neglected diseases and combat hepatitis, waterborne and communicable diseases (3.3).

How?

Primary Secondary

Direct: The Adjuvant Global Health Technology Fund will invest in late-stage technologies that address underfinanced healthcare challenges in low and middle-income countries. The fund will primarily target investees that are at the mid- to late-stage of the research and development process and require Adjuvant’s capital and expertise to receive regulatory approval, to scale production and to secure routes-to-market.

Catalytic: Lack of track record in funding research and development in disease areas applicable to low and middle income markets and uncertain returns are preventing the market from developing. The fund can help prove the commercial case for investing in these areas and mobilise more capital in this underfinanced sector.

Who?

Stakeholder Geography Characteristics
Customers (in many cases, these will not be paying customers but rather recipients of international/aid programmes)

Primarily low and middle-income countries. Some technologies will have dual use applications, but the Global Access Commitments mean that marketing and distribution must include low-income and lower-middle income countries.

Very often, low/very low income and beneficiaries of humanitarian/aid programmes. Global Access Commitments give us comfort that the pricing will be affordable to lower-middle income populations. Given the important focus on maternal mortality, we expect a large number of customers to be women.

How much?

Scale Depth/Duration

Likely large scale, in the millions of people treated, as the number of investee product registrations and low and middle-income countries’ market authorisations grows.

The nature of the healthcare challenges being addressed by the fund means that we can expect these investments to result in very meaningful impact in terms of reduced mortality and morbidity for millions of individuals, particularly the most underserved. Investments will be most impactful when the technology is designed to address an unmet medical need, i.e. for diseases where no applicable treatment or preventative currently exists. Where other global health products already exist, investments may be used to support alternative products when they are superior. This could either be in terms of their effectiveness or in terms of the likelihood that they will result in greater global public health impact in low- and middle-income countries; e.g. through improvements in price or usability.

Contribution/additionality

Contribution/additionality
  • Financial additionality: Our commitment will increase the scale of the overall impact.

Grid score

Grid Score

To help us direct our investments, we previously used a tool called the Development Impact Grid. It scored investments out of four, based on two factors: the difficulty of investing in a country and the propensity of the sector to generate employment. This tool was used for investments until the end of 2021. Since 2022 it has been replaced by the Impact Score.

This investment is made under an approved Catalyst Strategy, and therefore does not require a grid score.

Risk

Execution Risk
  • This captures a range of risks which would prevent a technology from being developed and/or commercialised. After due diligence we consider Adjuvant to be well placed to address these risks.
Alignment Risk
  • The risk appears low and we believe we have strong alignment with Adjuvant and other LPs (on the impact mandate and the parameters that define success). The Global Access Commitments and governance oversight provided by the Social Impact Committee gives us further comfort.

Environmental and social information

  • Environmental and social summary

    A high-level description of the environmental and social aspects of the investment. This may include a summary of key environmental and social risks identified during environmental and social due diligence (ESDD); key elements of an environmental and social action plan (ESAP); or ways in which we plan to support the investee improve environmental and social standards, such as through their environmental and social management system (ESMS); as well as any other priority areas agreed with the investee.

  • Environmental and social risk

    A risk category rating, which indicates the level of environmental and social risk associated with an investment. For an explanation of the categorisations used, see here. We consistently provide an environmental and social risk category for all investments screened from 2023 onwards.

Environmental and social summary

We are working closely with the fund manager to improve its existing ESMS, including delivering an action plan.

Reporting and Complaints Mechanism

The Reporting and Complaints Mechanism allows anyone outside BII to report alleged breaches of the business integrity or environmental and social provisions of BII’s Policy on Responsible Investing. This includes breaches made by BII, a BII investee, or a portfolio company of a fund in which BII has invested. The Reporting and Complaints Mechanism Rules are available here. Reports and complaints can be submitted by email to [email protected] or by mail. See more details on our Reporting and Complaints Mechanism here.

For any other general enquiries contact us at [email protected]

  • Key facts

    Last updated

    When the last quarterly update of the website database occurred.

    :
    June 2024
    Project number

    An identifier number shared by investments in the same project.

    :
    D3910
    Status

    The current status of the investment (green flag for active and red flag for exited).

    :
    Active
    Region

    The geographical region where the country is located. We currently invest in Africa, South Asia, South East Asia and the Caribbean. In 2023, BII’s investment mandate was extended allowing it to invest in regional funds linked to Ukraine, with the majority of activity expected to begin post-war. Investments outside these regions were made prior to 2012 under previous investment mandates.

    :
    Global, West Africa
    Sector

    We prioritise those sectors that facilitate development and need our capital the most. Our priority sectors contribute towards many of the Sustainable Development Goals. They range from investing in the power infrastructure that will provide people with better access to electricity, to investing in financial institutions that direct capital to the individuals and businesses that need it the most.

    :
    Consumer - Health

    We provide capital in the following ways: directly – through direct equity, direct debt, guarantees and other non-intermediated financial instruments; and indirectly – principally through investment funds.

    For direct investments and fund investments, this is the date BII committed capital to the investments. This is typically the date on which legal agreements are signed by all parties.

    For the portfolio companies of our fund investments, this is the date (either the month or the quarter) on which the fund committed capital to the portfolio company.

    For direct equity investments, this is the date at which British International Investment exited the investment.

    For debt investments, this is the date at which the final debt repayment was made.

    For funds, this is the date at which the fund was terminated.

    For underlying fund investments, this is the date at which the fund manager exited the investment.

    The total amount committed, per financial instrument, per investment, on the date BII becomes subject to a binding legal obligation to provide funding or assume a contingent liability. This information is provided in US dollars.

    For direct investments, this is the amount that BII has committed to the business or project. For fund investments, this is the amount BII has committed to the fund.

    The currency in which the investment was made.

    Investment type :
    Fund
    Start date :
    December 2020
    Amount :
    $25m
    Currency of investment :
    USD
    Fund Manager:
    Adjuvant Capital
    Domicile

    The company or investment fund’s place of incorporation.

    :
    Cayman Islands

Investments made by this fund into companies:

For further information about these companies, visit https://adjuvantcapital.com/

Investment name Country Region Sector Start date Status
54Gene, Inc. Nigeria West Africa Consumer - Health April 2020 Active
AN2 Therapeutics Global Rest of the World Consumer - Health November 2019 Active
Antiva Biosciences, Inc. Global Rest of the World Consumer - Health October 2021 Active
Chromacode Inc Global Rest of the World Consumer - Health May 2020 Active
Codagenix Global Rest of the World Consumer - Health January 2020 Active
Curevo Vaccine (Curevo) Global Rest of the World Consumer - Health March 2022 Active
Evofem Biosciences Inc. Global Rest of the World Consumer - Health October 2020 Active
Excision Global Rest of the World Consumer - Health January 2021 Active
Frontier Nutrition Global Rest of the World Consumer - Health December 2020 Active
InDevR Inc. Global Rest of the World Consumer - Health August 2019 Active
LimmaTech Biologics AG Switzerland Rest of the World Consumer - Health December 2023 Active
Memo Therapeutics Global Rest of the World Consumer - Health February 2022 Active
MinervaX ApS Global Rest of the World Consumer - Health December 2020 Active
Pulmocide Ltd Global Rest of the World Consumer - Health April 2021 Active
Stack Diagnostics Global Rest of the World Consumer - Health June 2021 Exited
Themis Bioscience GmbH Global Rest of the World Consumer - Health September 2019 Exited
Univercells SA Global Rest of the World Consumer - Health August 2020 Active
VitriVax Inc. Global Rest of the World Consumer - Health December 2020 Active
X-Vax Technology Inc. Global Rest of the World Consumer - Health July 2019 Active
Yisheng Biopharma Co Ltd Global Rest of the World Consumer - Health July 2020 Active

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