By Mike Cloonan, CEO of Sionna Therapeutics, as part of the From The Trenches feature of LifeSciVC An insightful piece on this blog following the JPM healthcare conference noted the “refreshing burst of enthusiasm” in the biotech sector. It’s true that venture funds raised significant capital despite numerous challenges over the past two years. And many are looking for the right investments now. We are turning a corner, and optimistically that means more private companies will be able to secure the resources they need to advance groundbreaking research through critical value inflection points ..read more

Today IFM Therapeutics announced the acquisition of IFM Due, one of its subsidiaries, by Novartis. Back in Sept 2019, IFM granted Novartis the right to acquire IFM Due as part of an “option to buy” collaboration around cGAS-STING antagonists for autoimmune disease. This secures for IFM what is a rarity for a single biotech company: a liquidity hat trick, as this milestone represents the third successful exit of an IFM Therapeutics subsidiary since its inception in 2015. Back in 2017, BMS purchased IFM’s  NLRP3 and STING agonists for cancer.  In early 2019, Novartis acquired IFM Tre f ..read more

By Aoife Brennan, former CEO of Synlogic, as part of the From The Trenches feature of LifeSciVC I have recently completed a turn around the biotech sun: a seven-year assignment at Synlogic that ended this year when an early readout of our Phase 3 program indicated that it was unlikely to meet its primary endpoint. Did I dream of a different outcome for the company – a therapeutic that helped thousands of patients and provided a generous return for investors and employees? Absolutely. Do I consider the past seven years to have been a waste of time? Absolutely not. One of the things that attract ..read more

By Robert Clarke, CEO of Kinaset, as part of the From The Trenches feature of LifeSciVC As I write, I am on the train back from New York after watching my son’s NYU basketball team play in the 2024 D3 Men’s Basketball Tournament. March Madness D3 style is a great affair as just like D1 there are 64 teams vying for a title (out of 436 D3 vs 351 D1). Alas, NYU ran into a tough Tufts team in the second round and lost a tight one 65-62. That said, all in all a great season with 21 total wins and first UAA conference championship in 30 years. Thanks for letting me share my Dad fandom. D3 March madn ..read more

By Ivana Magovčević-Liebisch, CEO of Vigil Neuroscience, as part of the From The Trenches feature of LifeSciVC Patients and their care partners are at the center of our work in the life sciences industry – but at what point during the drug development process should companies start to engage these key stakeholders? At Vigil, our answer was simple: from the beginning. Our lead asset is in development for adult-onset leukoencephalopathy with axonal spheroids and pigmented glia (ALSP), a rare disease with no approved treatments, so we have prioritized incorporating patient and care partner voices ..read more

By Ankit Mahadevia, former CEO of Spero Therapeutics, as part of the From The Trenches feature of LifeSciVC The right leaders in the right structure can power companies to great things. The general consensus is that all companies need a CEO and full team at the helm (see here for several posts we’ve written on this topic) to thrive.  However, many emerging companies do not have a traditional structure, as I’ve noticed across my Board, venture, and company building experience.  These include, for example, companies too early for a CEO and those undertaking the (usually long) process o ..read more

By Arthur Tzianabos, CEO of Lifordi Immunotherapeutics, as part of the From the Trenches feature of LifeSciVC Well, this is a first…. while I have read and enjoyed the the LifeSci VC blog for years, being asked to contribute for the first time yielded a ‘holy crap’ moment in the ‘be careful what you wish for’ category.  For those of you out there who know me, you know that I am not afraid to share my view and opinion.  Now that there is a platform to do so…let us see how it goes. I was afforded this opportunity as a result of jumping in as CEO of a Series A newco that was formed by A ..read more

By Aimee Raleigh, Principal at Atlas Venture, as part of the From The Trenches feature of LifeSciVC Just in time for new years’ reflections and resolutions, this year’s JPM felt like a refreshing burst of enthusiasm for a sector that has seen its challenges in 2022 and 2023 but also some green shoots. 2023 was a stellar year for M&A, comeback stories, burgeoning “hot” spaces, and for re-learning the basics of belt-tightening and careful capital allocation. Despite the mixed bag of macro trends (pauses on interest hikes, but challenges inherent in an election year), the mood this year at JP ..read more

Biotech feels like it’s got some wind in its sails here at the start of 2024, with positive sentiments from the JPM conference. Indeed, the public equity markets feeling somewhat buoyant for the first time in ages. With the close out of 2023, it’s time to take stock of the health of the private venture ecosystem. Analyzing Pitchbook data for venture funding into US-based biopharma companies, at least four themes are worth highlighting related to overall funding, startup creation, mega-rounds, and valuations. 1. VC funding overall has stabilized at around $5B per quarter, which is a historicall ..read more

By Jonathan Montagu, CEO of HotSpot Therapeutics, as part of the From The Trenches feature of LifeSciVC Signaling pathways are the intricate networks that govern cell behavior, lying at the crux of cell function. They are used by nature to control almost all forms of cell activity – growth, response to stimuli, adaptation, replication, cell death. At its most fundamental, a signaling pathway is a cascade of activity, whereby a single stimulus triggers a precise sequence, resulting in specific cellular outcomes. An analog for a signaling pathway is the board game “Mouse Trap.” In the game, once ..read more