Vantage Capital, Africa’s largest independent provider of mezzanine risk capital, has provided mezzanine debt funding to support Austell Laboratories, a fast growing and 100% black-owned pharmaceuticals company in South Africa.

Zaheer Cassim, Associate Partner at Vantage, said: “Austell is a great example of how Vantage is providing financial support to emerging mid-market companies in South Africa. The strong empowerment credentials of the Company and the socio-economic impact of a transforming health care industry is a great story which we are proud to be a part of.”

Austell currently provides a basket of generic and premium products to the pharmaceutical market in South Africa.

Sales, marketing and distribution is done through their national sales representative team who target pharmacies, doctors, specialists and large chain retailers.

The Company is already well-renowned in the industry for taking the cough and sinus drugs Prospan and Sinupret to market leading positions in their respective therapeutic classes.

Austell has also launched several new products this year and plans to increase its basket of offerings over the next few years.

The mezzanine facility will be used by Austell to fund its working capital needs and the acquisition of further medical dossiers [the documented blue-print of a medical drug which contains the chemical formulation, dosage requirements and clinical trials data relating to a specific drug] in order to expand its range of products.

Suhail Gani, Founder and CEO of Austell, said: “Vantage was able to provide us with the flexible and much needed funding we required to support our business during this critical and rapid growth phase.”

Luc Albinski, Managing Partner at Vantage, added: “This transaction ticked all the right boxes for us as Vantage, the robustness of the pharmaceutical sector in which the Company operates, the strong owner managed culture, the empowerment and social impact of the investment and of course the phenomenal growth prospects we see in Austell.”

With Fund II largely deployed, Vantage has commenced the raising of its third mezzanine fund which is targeted to close by the first quarter of 2015 at R2.5bn ($0.23bn).