E+H advises the founders of Single Use Support on the sale of a majority stake to Novo Holdings

Single Use Support GmbH is a scale-up company based in Kufstein, Austria. Founded by Johannes Kirchmair and Thomas Wurm in 2017, Single Use Support offers innovative liquid management products and services around single-use technologies for the pharmaceutical industry and has quickly established itself as a reliable global player in the biopharmaceutical industry. Since 2020, Danaher Corporation, a leading global life sciences and diagnostics innovator, has been a minority shareholder of Single Use Support.

Following a competitive bidding process, the three shareholders have entered into a purchase agreement with Novo Holdings A/S for a majority stake of approximately 60% in Single Use Support. Novo Holdings is a holding and investment company that is responsible for managing the assets and the wealth of the Novo Nordisk Foundation. The purpose of Novo Holdings is to improve people’s health and the sustainability of society and the planet by generating attractive long-term returns on the assets of the Novo Nordisk Foundation. Wholly owned by the Novo Nordisk Foundation, Novo Holdings is the controlling shareholder of Novo Nordisk A/S and Novonesis A/S (formerly Novozymes A/S) and manages an investment portfolio with a long-term return perspective. In addition to managing a broad portfolio of equities, bonds, real estate, infrastructure and private equity assets, Novo Holdings is a world-leading life sciences investor. Through its Seeds, Venture, Growth, Asia, Bioindustrial and Principal Investments teams, Novo Holdings invests in life science companies at all stages of development. As of year-end 2023, Novo Holdings had total assets of EUR 149 billion. Completion of the transaction is subject to customary regulatory approvals.

E+H, led by Dr Peter Winkler, Dr Philipp Schrader, and Dr Clemens Lanschützer, advised the founders Johannes Kirchmair and Thomas Wurm throughout the entire process and was responsible for the overall legal management and coordination of the preparation and execution of the bidding process and the transaction.

‘We congratulate Johannes and Thomas on building this great company and are delighted that we were able to accompany and support them in this success,’ says Dr Peter Winkler, Partner at E+H. ‘This transaction is further proof that it is also possible to found and build companies in Austria that attract global interest and enable remarkable exits. We are pleased that we have been able to regularly support such headline exits for many years.’