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Veteran Biotech Venture Investors Corral New Funds
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By Brian Gormley, WSJ Pro
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Good day. Experienced biotechnology venture investors are fundraising with ease despite economic turbulence rocking financial markets.
SR One, a former arm of drugmaker GSK PLC, and Cure Ventures, a new firm started by veterans of firms including Third Rock Ventures, recently closed new funds. Now, Canaan Partners, a 35-year-old firm, has secured $850 million to invest in technology and healthcare.
Menlo Park, Calif.-based Canaan raised $650 million for its new venture fund, Canaan XIII, and a $200 million vehicle to give an extra boost to companies in this new fund and earlier funds.
The firm, which invests about 35% of its dollars in healthcare, raised less for Canaan XIII than its predecessor, an $800 million fund closed in 2020.
Canaan hasn’t changed strategy, but the lower amount reflects declining valuations and smaller financing rounds being completed today compared with 2020, said Partner Colleen Cuffaro. “We carefully considered the fund size,” Dr. Cuffaro said, adding that the firm raised the $200 million pool expecting some portfolio companies will stay private longer.
Canaan anticipates most of its healthcare investments to be in syndicated Series A rounds. But, like SR One and Cure, part of its strategy is to help biotech companies get off the ground.
Canaan has built relationships with academic researchers such as Yale University’s Craig Crews, who was scientific founder of biotech company Arvinas Inc. The firm backed a 2013 Series A round for Arvinas and the startup went public in 2018. Dr. Crews is also scientific founder of Halda Therapeutics Inc., founded in 2019, a cancer drug developer also backed by Canaan.
The firm has always valued capital efficiency, but fundamentals such as ensuring biotechs have enough funding to reach important milestones now matter more than ever, Dr. Cuffaro said.
And now on to the news...
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Exelixis, a biotech company based in Alameda, Calif., develops cancer-fighting drugs.
PHOTO: RAFAEL HENRIQUE/SIPA PRESS/ASSOCIATED PRESS
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Proxy fight. Hedge fund Farallon Capital Management is planning to wage a proxy battle at biotech company Exelixis Inc., according to people familiar with the matter, The Wall Street Journal reports.
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Farallon has nominated three director candidates that it flagged in a late-March securities filing, the people said. At the time, the firm hadn’t decided to move forward with a proxy fight and was still trying to work with the company. The window to nominate directors ran from Feb. 24 to March 26, according to proxy materials.
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Farallon has a roughly 7.2% stake in Alameda, Calif.-based Exelixis, which develops cancer-fighting drugs, according to the filing. It has been an investor in the business since 2018.
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$2.62 Billion
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The approximate amount that Sartorius AG paid to acquire gene-therapy technology company Polyplus-transfection SA, a deal that generated returns for investors Warburg Pincus and ArchiMed.
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These Drugs Are So Futuristic That Doctors Need New Training
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A major obstacle looms for the drugs of the future. Not enough doctors know how to administer them, WSJ reports. Many of these new therapies are administered through lumbar punctures, which aren’t a routine part of doctors’ daily practices.
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Cash App Creator Bob Lee Fatally Stabbed in San Francisco
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Bob Lee, the chief product officer at cryptocurrency company MobileCoin Inc., was killed in San Francisco on Tuesday, his father said, WSJ reports. The San Francisco Police Department said a 43-year-old man was stabbed at around 2:35 a.m. on Tuesday, and later died at a hospital. The police said homicide investigators are looking into the stabbing and haven’t made any arrests. The department didn’t name the man. Mr. Lee’s father, Rick Lee, said in a Facebook post that his son “lost his life on the street in San Francisco.”
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Mr. Lee had been MobileCoin’s chief product officer since 2021 and had previously worked on some of Silicon Valley’s most well-known products.
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He created Cash App while he was the first chief technology officer at Square Inc. Cash App is owned by Block Inc., which Square is now known as.
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People
Women’s healthcare provider Tia appointed Stacey Irving as chief operating officer. Ms. Irving joins the company from Davita.
Arkuda Therapeutics, a developer of medicines that change the trajectory of neurodegenerative disease, promoted Duane Burnett to the post of chief technology officer. Mr. Burnett co-founded the company and previously served as senior vice president, head of discovery.
NeuraLight, a startup leveraging artificial intelligence to digitize neurology, added Vivian DeWoskin as chief commercial officer. She was most recently vice president, head of strategy at Komodo Health.
UroDev Medical, a medical device company working to improve the quality of life for people suffering from neurogenic bladder and chronic urinary retention, named Dean Briesemeister as chief executive. He was previously at Heraeus Medevio.
Kidney disease treatment developer Walden Biosciences Inc. promoted Curt Dewan to chief financial officer. Prior to joining Walden in 2021, he was at Servier Pharmaceuticals.
Exits
Telehealth support services provider OpenLoop Health acquired diagnostic imaging company Imaging Panda for an undisclosed amount.
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Mercy BioAnalytics Inc., a Natick, Mass.-based liquid biopsy platform for the early detection of cancer, closed a $41 million Series A round. Novalis LifeSciences led the investment, which included participation from Sozo Ventures, Hatteras Venture Partners and others.
Eli, a Montreal-headquartered women’s health startup providing saliva-based continuous hormone monitoring technology, raised 5 million Canadian dollars (about $3.7 million) from investors including Muse Capital.
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Todd Suter, senior principal biologist, at a lab at Eli Lilly headquarters in Indianapolis.
PHOTO: MADDIE MCGARVEY FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
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The ‘King Kong’ of weight-loss drugs is coming
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Longevity seekers embraced this drug. Does it fight aging?
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Think you’re too young to need a colonoscopy? Think again.
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Investors are too spooked by Washington’s PBM crackdown
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Johnson & Johnson seeks $9 billion settlement of talc lawsuits
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New Vir CEO eyes expansion beyond infectious diseases (Endpoints News)
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How the U.S. healthcare system is like a Jackson Pollock painting (STAT)
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Artificial wombs will change abortion rights forever (Wired)
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Artificial intelligence in medicine (New England Journal of Medicine)
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White House rolls out new cancer initiative to help implement ‘Moonshot’ (The Hill)
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