* Sunstone Capital considers listing Santaris Pharma
* Decision on IPO will probably be made this year
* Sunstone says prefers U.S. listing due to better analystcoverage (Adds financial details)
By Teis Jensen and Ole Mikkelsen
COPENHAGEN, March 26 (Reuters) - Danish venture capital firmSunstone is considering whether to list its partly owned biotechcompany Santaris Pharma in the United States, and will probablymake a decision this year, Sunstone told Reuters on Wednesday.
Santaris, which was founded through a merger of twocompanies in 2003, develops drugs against liver cancer, head andneck cancer, and against metabolic and infectious diseases.
In 2006, Sunstone was the lead investor in a 45 million euro($62.00 million) venture investment in Santaris and is now themain owner with a 24.8 percent stake, around twice as much asthe next two owners, pension fund LD and industrial foundationNovo A/S.
Claus Andersson, partner in Sunstone and deputy chairman ofSantaris' board, said an initial public offering (IPO) has notbeen decided on, but that it is one of the options beingconsidered.
"If we are going to launch an IPO we would probably have totake the decision this year," Andersson said. "And so we canexecute it in the 6-9 months it usually takes to launch an IPO."
He declined to indicate a size of a possible IPO, but saidthe timing is important as investors at some point will haveexhausted the funds dedicated to life science investments.
"There have been a number of IPOs in the U.S. and now theinvestors are waiting for the shares to rise," he said. "We arehoping that some of the listings in the U.S. could showinvestors that life science is reasonable to invest in."
Andersson said Sunstone would prefer to list Santaris in theU.S. because the firm considers analyst coverage of biotechcompanies to be more in depth, consistent and frequent therethan in Europe.
Santaris hired U.S. biotech entrepreneur J. Donald deBethizyas its chief executive in January this year, and established abranch in San Diego, California in 2009.
Andersson said Santaris is not in immediate need of fundingas it recently struck a deal with Swiss pharma giant Roche, which secured funding for its research beyond the endof 2014.
Other partners include Bristol Myers Squibb andGlaxoSmithKline Plc, and since 2007 the firm hasgenerated income of $160 million from these and other firms,Chief Financial Officer Henrik Stage said.
Last year the company entered into six new agreements andgenerated almost $40 million in partner revenues.
Sunstone, the private equity investor, was also involved inthe U.S. listing of Danish biotech firm Egalet inFebruary, which saw its shares surge 65 percent in its firstfive weeks of trading before losing about half its accumulatedgains.($1 = 5.4180 Danish Crowns)($1 = 0.7258 Euros) (Additional reporting by Shida Chayesteh, editing by TerjeSolsvik)
Glaxosmithkline (GSK)