Next Phase Newsletter

The corporate venture arm of a pharmaceutical company seeks to make strategic investments into early-stage companies that are aligned with its parent firm’s R&D focus. For equity investments, the firm will lead, co-lead, or participate in syndicated financings. The firm benefits from deep connections into its parent firm’s global research and development centers, and is well placed to nurture innovative pharmaceutical companies and to connect these into the parent organization.

The firm’s core focus is on therapeutics. Currently, the firm is most interested in oncology, gastrointestinal diseases, and CNS. The firm is also interested in breakthrough platforms technologies that improve peptide, antibody, cell, and gene based therapies. The firm does not invest in medical devices or diagnostics.

The firm’s primary focus is on start-up/seed rounds, through mid-stage financings – pre-clinical through Phase II. The firm respects the autonomy of the institutions it invests in and seeks standard institutional venture investment terms without special rights or options.

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

A multinational health technology group based in China is interested in strategic investments and M&A opportunities. The firm is looking for later stage opportunities from the USA, Europe, and Israel. For deals, the firm is looking for M&A deals that are no larger than $1Billion USD and prefers that the company has some form of sales in China.

The group is currently focused on medical devices, specifically dental devices. For these devices, they must have CE and FDA approval and they would prefer if the device had CFDA approval as well. The current short-term goal of the firm is to become the largest dental equipment and consumables supplier before expanding into other indications.

The firm requires companies that have revenue and would prefer a company with net profit and a good annual growth rate.

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

A venture investment firm based in the Mid-Atlantic region of the USA is focused on bridging Eastern and Western innovations and investment opportunities. The firm invests in early to mid-stage biopharma and medtech projects. With its own R&D facilities in China, in-licensing assets from the U.S. and Europe to China would be an important consideration although not requisite for their investment opportunities. With additional strategic investing partners in China, the size of investment can vary depending on the deal. The firm is currently looking for new opportunities globally.

The firm is generally interested in preclinical to phase 1/2 stage assets in biotech and medtech. The firm is open to all therapeutic modalities. Within medtech, the firm is more interested in personalized medicine/companion diagnostics and novel devices. In terms of disease areas, the firm is interested in therapeutics in most therapeutic areas, including autoimmune diseases, cancer, metabolic, liver and gastrointestinal conditions, but the firm generally avoids behavioral illnesses.

The firm is seeking strong management teams with products that could address large unmet medical need. The firm has R&D facilities in China that can facilitate product development and registration both for China local and global market. The firm is open to negotiating regional rights with flexible terms.

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

A family office based in California invests in primarily early-stage (seed, Series A) companies with truly innovative technologies with a typical investment size of $2-5M per company and can invest as low as $500K. The firm will generally lead investments, and invests globally with no geographic preference.

The firm is seeking innovative technology that is outside traditional biotech. The company is agnostic across life science sectors, including therapeutics, devices, and tools, but will not look at Healthcare IT or digital health technologies. They are interested in therapeutics targeting novel first-in-class targets, and not in biosimilars or repurposed drugs. The firm focuses on early stage preclinical to clinical-stage technology, though may be open to commercial-stage technology depending on the opportunity.

The firm is seeking companies with founders who have big ambitions, and a demonstrated ability to sell their team, investors, and partners on their vision. Previous startup experience is a big plus, but not required, and they will invest in young and first-time entrepreneurs.

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

A large biotechnology company headquartered in the USA is continuously looking to expand its pipeline through external partnerships and is open to many types of collaboration, including e.g. collaborative research, equity investments, licensing, or M&A. The company considers opportunities from around the globe.

The firm is currently focused on neurodegenerative diseases, neuromuscular disorders, pain, neuroimmunology/-inflammation, other rare neurological diseases, and adjacencies to neurology such as ophthalmology; and other rare and orphan diseases. The firm is seeking platform technologies (e.g. gene therapy/editing) as well as single therapeutic assets that facilitate the identification and validation of new therapeutic targets, biomarkers and patient segmentation strategies. The firm considers projects from post-lead identification and pre-IND to late clinical stages, with an increased interest in Phase Ib and later projects.

Along this line, the company is also interested in diagnostic tools to utilize biomarkers of interest early in clinical trials. The firm is modality agnostic with respect to therapeutic approaches. The firm evaluates deal opportunities on a case-by-case basis, considering a wide range of opportunities from early academic partnerships to M&A.

The firm principally evaluates opportunities based on three key criteria: transformative (‘moonshot’) solution to unmet medical need, sound scientific basis, and clear clinical development and regulatory pathways.

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 worldwide closed a new fund in 2017. The firm predominantly focuses on seed and series A and B investments in early stage biotechnology companies, as well as growth equity investments in medical devices companies. The firm’s typical investment size for early stage companies is $5M-$15M and the firm can allocate up to $35-40M total over the life of an investment. The firm focuses on companies that are based in the U.S., Canada and Europe and is actively seeking new investment opportunities.

The firm’s newest fund closed at $400 million, and will invest in 20‐25 biotechnology companies in the U.S., Canada and Europe.

The firm focuses on novel therapeutics and is opportunistic in terms of subsectors and indications. The firm is interested in novel small molecule and biologic therapeutics that address immuno-oncology, orphan/rare or genetic-based diseases, inflammation, infectious diseases and specific viruses, microbiome, and fibrosis and CNS indications. The firm is also interested in regenerative medicine and gene therapy. In medical devices, the firm is generally agnostic to subsector, but is more interested in revenue-generating devices that address cardiovascular, orthopedic, ophthalmic and neurological disorders. Versant prefers devices with proof-of-concept and strong IP.

The firm prefers that a startup company has a strong and experienced management team or technical experts in the relevant technology. The firm generally is flexible with management teams.

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

A venture capital and private equity firm based in Shanghai, China manages both US dollar and RMB denominated fund. The firm invests in Series A rounds at $1-2M, though its sweet spot is investing $10-15M in Series B/C rounds. The firm works closely with local provincial Chinese governments, allowing them the ability to bring technology successfully into the Chinese market. The firm will generally not invest in the seed stage, and seeks opportunities globally.

The firm invests in pharmaceuticals and Class II medical devices, including an interest in 505(b)(2) repurposed compounds, as well as healthcare-related industries. The firm is interested in all therapeutic areas and in early to mid development stage companies. The firm focuses on unmet medical needs with a China market potential.

The firm does not have management team requirements. The firm will typically take a board seat post-investment, and has the capability to lead and co-invest.

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