New Leaf Venture Partners Affirms Its Support of Roumell Asset Management’s Letter to Transcept Pharmaceuticals’ Board
New York, NY September 9, 2013 – New Leaf Venture Partners (NLV Partners) announced that the Company has submitted today a letter to the Board of Directors of Transcept Pharmaceuticals, Inc., concurring with a 13D filing by Roumell Asset Management, LLC, which is dated September 5, 2013, and is publicly available.
Transcept Pharmaceuticals developed Intermezzo® (zolpidem tartrate) sublingual tablet C-IV, for which Purdue Pharma holds commercialization and development rights in the United States.
An investor of Transcept Pharmaceuticals through its New Leaf Ventures I, L.P. fund, NLV Partners has communicated in its letter to the Transcept Board the following:
“As we have privately conveyed to management in the past, we do not believe that Transcept’s plan to acquire a new product along with its associated costs and risks are in the best interests of shareholders. We have not communicated with individuals associated with Roumell Asset Management, LLC, but on September 5th, 2013, the organization filed a publicly available 13D. Roumell Asset Management indicated that they sought ‘an immediate, and meaningful, buyback program while remaining liquid enough to pursue other possible Intermezzo strategies. Second, continue to engage Purdue to determine the future of the Intermezzo relationship. Third, immediately begin to right-size the business to a smaller company positioned to sell itself once the Purdue relationship is defined or to simply focus exclusively on Intermezzo with a much smaller and leaner organization.’
“As fellow shareholders, New Leaf Ventures I, L.P. supports these recommended measures and would like to see these steps implemented.”
About NLV Partners
New Leaf Venture Partners is a leader in healthcare technology venture investing. Our investment professionals bring a unique blend of technical, clinical, and operational experience to our investments, working closely with our entrepreneurs and management teams to help build successful companies. We invest in both public and private later-stage biopharmaceutical companies. We also invest in commercial-stage medical device and healthcare-related information technology companies.
New Leaf currently manages $1 billion in assets. This includes NLV’s funds, New Leaf Ventures I, L.P., and New Leaf Ventures II, L.P., as well as the healthcare technology portfolio of the Sprout Group, one of the oldest U.S. venture capital fund groups. For more information please visit http://www.nlvpartners.com.
Contact
Media: Justin Jackson, Burns McClellan on behalf of NLV Partners, +1-212-213-0006, jjackson@burnsmc.com