Next Phase Newsletter

A corporate venture arm of an Asia-based global pharma is looking to provide equity capital to seed and venture stage companies in the life science space, and invests across North America & Europe. The firm is looking to provide companies with $5 million over the lifetime of the investment and plans on making 2-3 investments over the next year.

The firm is currently looking for novel therapeutics, platform technologies, diagnostics, and vaccines. The firm is interested in novel drugs in broad disease areas including neuroscience (particularly neurodegeneration), immunology, inflammation, and rare disease, as well as diagnostics for neurodegenerative disorders. Current platform technology areas of interest include regenerative medicine, synthetic biology, microbiome, gene therapy, and nucleic acid medicine.

The firm strongly prefers that the company has a strong management team with experience in the industry. The firm historically has only invested as a co-investor although they are capable and looking to take a lead position if the correct opportunity arises. The firm is looking to allocate to companies that will eventually be able to partner long term with its parent company.

If you are interested in more information about this investor and other investors tracked by LSN, please email mandates@lifesciencenation.com.

A medical technology venture firm makes equity investments in early stage companies developing diagnostic technologies to accelerate the trend of precision medicine. The firm seeks a leading investment position and deep involvement with its portfolio companies. Typical investment ranges from $5-15 M and is calibrated to milestone attainment. With a global view and global operational capabilities, the firm is currently seeking opportunities around the world.

The firm focuses on three market segments that support knowledge-generating precision medicine diagnosis: 1) mobile health, data analytics, and healthcare IT; 2) high specificity in-vivo and in-vitro diagnostics; and 3) diagnostic technologies that guide or are a companion to precision therapies. The firm is looking for technologies that will dramatically improve patient health and have the potential for global markets and scale.

The firm is looking for experienced management teams with deep domain expertise. The firm typically request board representation post-investment.

If you are interested in more information about this investor and other investors tracked by LSN, please email mandates@lifesciencenation.com.

A venture capital firm with offices in USA and Asia is actively seeking investment opportunities across a wide range of industries. A significant allocation of the fund is dedicated to healthcare investments, while the rest of the fund will focus on investing in automation/robotics companies and relations to healthcare. On average, the size of investment is $2.5M. The firm seeks opportunities that provide some degree of investment loss protection through strong intellectual property. The firm can participate anywhere from Seed to Series B. The firm is willing to both lead and co-invest in companies located around the globe, with a preference in US, China, and Germany. The firm plans to make 6-8 investments per year but is flexible. The firm is actively seeking new investment opportunities.

The firm is a flexible and opportunistic investor that is currently considering Therapeutics, Medical Devices, Diagnostics, and Healthcare IT companies. The firm is open to all kinds of sectors and indications. The firm is open to novel medical devices of all FDA regulatory pathways, including 510k and PMA. The firm is strongly interested in medical devices and cardiovascular diseases. In terms of therapeutics, the firm will look at products of all stages from pre-clinical to phase III. Regarding medical devices and diagnostics, the firm will invest at any stage of development.

The firm will invest in privately held companies only. The firm has no specific requirements for the management team. The firm may take a board seat in applicable cases, but the firm prefers to have board observer rights in its portfolio company.

If you are interested in more information about this investor and other investors tracked by LSN, please email mandates@lifesciencenation.com.

A VC firm based in Massachusetts recently raised a fourth fund of $100 million and is structured to make investments ranging from $500,000 to $1 million into companies raising rounds sizes in the $3-5 million range, primarily in Series A and B rounds. The firm also has the ability to provide capital in follow on situations when appropriate through its own resources and its network of syndicates and LPs, all of whom are strategic investors such as healthcare systems, vendors and payers. The firm primarily invests in the Northeastern US although they have also invested in companies throughout the United States.

The firm focuses on healthcare IT, technology enabled services, medical devices and diagnostics companies. The firm is most actively interested in companies in the healthcare IT space and software enabled devices, and they look much more selectively at companies in the medical device and diagnostics spaces. The firm is open to all indications.

The firm looks for privately held companies with experienced management teams. The firm looks to work side by side with entrepreneurs helping them form strategic relationships, recruit management talent, and assemble vital resources necessary for growth.

If you are interested in more information about this investor and other investors tracked by LSN, please email mandates@lifesciencenation.com.

A PE firm with offices in California and China recently closed two funds, one of USD 750 million and one of $100 million. The firm invests exclusively in the life science sector; the firm invests primarily in the USA and China, but will also invest in other regions such as Europe and Canada. Within China, the firm makes growth investments in companies that have existing revenues; in the USA and other regions, the firm makes both venture and growth-equity stage investments in both pre-revenue and revenue-stage companies. The firm’s allocations are highly varied. From the main fund, investments typically range from $10-30m, though larger investments are of interest as well; the second fund makes investments of typically $2-5 million, generally in financing rounds of $10 million or less. The firm is open to syndication. The firm is also particularly interested in working with companies that are open to or actively interested in seeking partnerships or opportunities in China.

The firm invests in therapeutics, medical devices, diagnostics, healthcare services, and clinically-oriented healthcare IT, and will consider investing in any indication area or technology subsector; however, orphan indications, dermatology/aesthetics, oncology, and blood diseases are of particular interest in the biopharma space; general surgery, neurovascular, cardiovascular, minimally invasive technologies, women’s health, respiratory care, novel diagnostics and orthopedics are of particular interest in the device space. The second fund focuses on early stage opportunities in biotech; from the main fund, the firm in most cases makes investments in products that have obtained market approval or are very close to commercialization, but earlier investments may be considered for highly innovative products or products that can demonstrate strong efficacy signals at an earlier stage (such as anti-infectives). For devices and diagnostics, the firm only invests in commercial-stage companies. Generally, the firm does not invest in imaging.

The firm is flexible regarding management teams, and works with both serial entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs who lack industry experience. In addition to investing in private companies, the firm is able to invest in public companies by means of PIPEs or public market placements. The firm is interested in investing in companies with products that can demonstrate cost-effectiveness.

If you are interested in more information about this investor and other investors tracked by LSN, please email mandates@lifesciencenation.com.

The firm is the largest, privately-owned designer, developer and manufacturer of advanced drug delivery systems and is active in R&D, design and manufacturing in all areas of healthcare. The firm is capable of a variety of deal structures, but prefers to enter into joint ventures and strategic partnerships as the firm seeks to be a value-added investor providing their expertise and capabilities in design and manufacturing as well as the resources of a large company while allowing the entrepreneur to drive the development of the technology.

The firm’s expertise lies in drug delivery devices, but has capabilities and is highly interested in all areas of medical technology/devices, biosensors and wearables, B2B or B2C healthcare IT applications including data analytics and cloud computing as well as robotics and AI as it applies to surgery prosthetics, rehabilitation and drug discovery. The firm has a particular interest in the diabetes space and has done work in this area in the past.

The firm is open to working with all entrepreneurs and is open to companies on a global basis. The firm does look for a board seat along with an investment, but strives to not be restrictive in any way and let the management team run the company.

If you are interested in more information about this investor and other investors tracked by LSN, please email mandates@lifesciencenation.com.

The foundation operates a $25 million fund focused on capitalizing translational opportunities – that is, the commercialization of academic technologies / financing the first round of commercialization. The fund provides funding to early-stage translational companies via $1M – $5M recoverable grants which are essentially structured as convertible notes with 1) no expiration date and 2) no liquidity preference. Such grants do not reflect as debt on the investee’s balance sheet, and are converted to equity at very reasonable terms only in the event the valuation of the company increases about a pre-determined level.

The foundation has also helped to organize, and is a General Partner of, a $350 million fund focused on pre-clinical, Phase I, Phase II, and Phase III investments. The foundation issues grants primarily within the United States, and via its subsidiary, throughout Asia. The foundation’s funding vehicles invest primarily within the United States, but have a small allocation for foreign investments.

Sector interests include drugs, medical devices, and novel approaches. The firm is also open to funding technologies designed to accelerate cancer research and drug development, such as novel drug discovery tools or algorithms. By using its multiple funding vehicles, the foundation finances projects from the early discovery stage through to Phase III clinical trials. The foundation considers projects in any type of cancer.

If you are interested in more information about this investor and other investors tracked by LSN, please email mandates@lifesciencenation.com.