We’re a science-native venture firm.
We underwrite the biology first, then back the builders of what drug creation is becoming.
The tools of drug creation are compounding. We back the platforms where they meet.
We underwrite the biology first, then back the builders of what drug creation is becoming.
For the first time, the three tools of drug creation are advancing at once: we can start from causally-validated human biology, design a molecule to spec instead of screening and hoping, and deliver it to tissues that were out of reach a few years ago.
Together, these shifts raise the probability that a drug works.
The full thesis →Human genetics now lets a company begin from a causally-validated target. Genetically-supported targets look roughly twice as likely to reach approval, which goes after the biggest reason drugs fail.
Sources: Nelson et al., Nature Genetics (2015); King, Davis & Degner, PLoS Genetics (2019).
Design is starting to replace search. Since AlphaFold, de novo protein and sequence models let founders specify the binder or enzyme they need and, increasingly, get it.
For a decade the constraint was rarely the payload; it was reaching the right tissue. The advances that opened the liver are now reaching muscle, the CNS and immune cells.
Scientific risk is the hardest variable in private biotech to price, and capital that can’t read the science tends to avoid it. We underwrite the biology directly, whether we’re backing a company at inception or acquiring a position later in its life.
The wave is the same everywhere; the way we back it differs. Different entry points, one point of view.
Our core strategy. We invest at the earliest stages in US companies whose edge is scientific: spinouts from leading labs and founders with a real biology or data advantage.
A dedicated European vehicle. The continent’s academic science is world-class and under-capitalized at the earliest stage; we meet it there, on the same thesis and the same underwriting.
Most secondaries are priced on financials. We price them on the science, bringing a rigorous read of the underlying assets to portfolios that already exist.
Our writing is the thesis, extended. It’s where the firm’s read on the field lives.
Building a biotech company, or considering liquidity in one?