Panthera Biopartners has secured investment from leading private equity investor LDC to support its expansion plans and further enhance its clinical capabilities.
Established in 2019 by co-founders Dr Ian Smith and Professor John Lyon, Panthera specialises in the recruitment of patients and running of Phase II and Phase III clinical trials. Its service offering spans trial planning, data collection and patient retention. Headquartered in Preston, Lancashire, the company operates six UK sites with two more planned and provides clinical trials for eight of the 12 largest pharmaceutical companies and all of the largest seven clinical research organisations (CROs).
Panthera has an outstanding market reputation due to its ability to recruit patients at speed and provide sponsors with certainty around study delivery, streamlining the route to commercialisation. Access to a large number of Principal Investigators (PIs) across the site network enables the business to service studies across a broad spectrum of therapeutic areas including vaccines, cardiovascular medicine, diabetes, neurology, respiratory medicine, dermatology, rheumatology and early dementia trials. In 2024, Panthera was the top global recruiter in four international clinical studies and had the first patient recruited in nine trials globally or within the UK.
The transaction marks a successful exit for BGF and Gresham House Ventures. Since their investment in 2022, the business has achieved rapid growth, with revenue increasing by more than 200%. As part of the new structure, BGF will reinvest and continue to support the business as a minority shareholder alongside LDC.
In the last decade alone, LDC has invested more than £409m into 18 healthcare companies with a combined enterprise value of £920m. Its experience of helping management teams in the sector to grow their business extends right across the UK and includes Synexus (another clinical trial SMO), which it helped diversify and expand to the US and Europe, diagnostic imaging equipment provider Medray Group and Bullen Healthcare, the UK’s largest independent dispensing appliance contractor of stoma, urology and wound care products. In June 2025, LDC was named Private Equity Investor of the Year at the annual HealthInvestor Awards in recognition of its support for the sector.
