Deep tech, round 2: DCVC Bio bags $350M fund to chase the tip of the life sci­ence spear

It took one trip from San Fran­cis­co to Van­cou­ver for Kier­sten Stead and her DCVC Bio crew to feel con­fi­dent about throw­ing their weight — and cash — be­hind Ab­Cellera.

Kier­sten Stead

CEO Carl Hansen’s aca­d­e­m­ic back­ground and the po­ten­tial of the plat­form, which com­bined ma­chine vi­sion and ro­bot­ics with mi­croflu­idics, were promis­ing. But the site vis­it sealed the Se­ries A deal, where DCVC was the lead and on­ly in­vestor.

“We saw a com­pa­ny that had a high­ly ad­van­taged method for ba­si­cal­ly turn­ing an­ti­body de­vel­op­ment in­to a deep search mech­a­nism, sim­i­lar to what Google might do,” she said.

As Ab­Cellera bur­nish­es its pro­file through an Eli Lil­ly-part­nered an­ti­body de­signed to help end the pan­dem­ic, Stead and John Hamer, the oth­er man­ag­ing part­ner of DCVC Bio, have closed $350 mil­lion to bet on com­pa­nies that sim­i­lar­ly sit at the in­ter­sec­tion of “deep tech” and life sci­ences.

DCVC Bio II, just like its pre­de­ces­sor, will look for ear­ly-stage com­pa­nies. Se­ries A, seed rounds should com­prise the ma­jor­i­ty of the port­fo­lio, but they al­so don’t mind rolling up their sleeves to help spin out a start­up if the op­por­tu­ni­ty aris­es.

John Hamer

The way Stead de­scribes it, these are places where com­pu­ta­tion is an “ab­solute core com­pe­ten­cy” rather than an af­ter­thought or sim­ply a sup­port­ing func­tion.

“Gen­er­al­ly speak­ing, our com­pa­nies gen­er­ate their own da­ta, they have their own de­vel­op­ers and they’re build­ing nov­el AI, nov­el al­go­rithms on their pro­pri­etary da­ta to ad­dress re­cal­ci­trant prob­lems across the life sci­ences,” she said.

The team — most of whom worked to­geth­er at Mon­san­to Growth Ven­tures be­fore mov­ing un­der DCVC — is think­ing big. Cit­ing “the triple threat of cli­mate change, an in­creas­ing glob­al pop­u­la­tion and frag­ile glob­al sup­ply chains,” they al­so want to tap in­to agri­cul­ture and in­dus­tri­al biotech­nol­o­gy.

When it comes to ther­a­peu­tics, Stead is be­gin­ning to see the con­flu­ence of dif­fer­ent modal­i­ties from pro­tein degra­da­tion to cell ther­a­pies and gene edit­ing.

Chas­ing those emerg­ing arcs of com­pu­ta­tion and bi­ol­o­gy has brought DCVC Bio to new in­ven­tions in ro­bot­ics and au­toma­tion — think Or­ca Bio’s au­to­mat­ed sys­tem for man­u­fac­tur­ing cell grafts — as well as liv­ing med­i­cines, such as the ge­net­i­cal­ly en­gi­neered mi­crobes at Novome. Phys­i­cal in­tel­li­gent sys­tems will loom large to com­ple­ment soft­ware break­throughs, she pre­dict­ed, while things like re­in­force­ment learn­ing (al­go­rithms that can gen­er­ate their own da­ta) could work around some of the cur­rent con­straints in bi­o­log­i­cal re­search.

Even though phar­ma these days is clear­ly cog­nizant of the need to in­te­grate new com­pu­ta­tion­al tech­nolo­gies, Stead said they face the re­al chal­lenge of re­cruit­ing peo­ple who have ex­pe­ri­ence set­ting up com­mer­cial AI. That’s not to say they don’t play a key role in bring­ing the com­pounds gen­er­at­ed on new plat­forms to­ward the mar­ket; they may just come in lat­er in the process.

“A com­mon thread of en­tre­pre­neurs that we in­vest in and build com­pa­nies with is that they ran X com­pu­ta­tion­al group at X phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal com­pa­ny but re­al­ized that they couldn’t start from scratch and build it from the ground up,” she said, “and and they were re­al­ly pro­found­ly lim­it­ed by that, and want­ed to start a start­up so that they could do X right, what­ev­er their par­tic­u­lar area of in­ter­est is.”

DCVC man­ag­ing part­ners Matt Ocko and Zachary Bogue said on their blog re­cent­ly the fact that the new fund was raised en­tire­ly dur­ing the pan­dem­ic high­lights the ap­petite for even more. Their first fund has backed some ef­forts to ad­dress the cur­rent health­care cri­sis; it’s time to find “the next set of so­lu­tions to the next set of prob­lems.”

Has the mo­ment fi­nal­ly ar­rived for val­ue-based health­care?

RBC Capital Markets’ Healthcare Technology Analyst, Sean Dodge, spotlights a new breed of tech-enabled providers who are rapidly transforming the way clinicians deliver healthcare, and explores the key question: can this accelerating revolution overturn the US healthcare system?

Key points

Tech-enabled healthcare providers are poised to help the US transition to value, not volume, as the basis for reward.
The move to value-based care has policy momentum, but is risky and complex for clinicians.
Outsourced tech specialists are emerging to provide the required expertise, while healthcare and tech are also converging through M&A.
Value-based care remains in its early stages, but the transition is accelerating and represents a huge addressable market.

Lat­est on ul­tra-rare dis­ease ap­proval; Pos­i­tive, if mixed, signs for Bio­gen's ALS drug; Clay Sie­gall finds a new job; and more

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Over the last four years, we’ve honored 80 women whose extraordinary accomplishments have changed the game in biopharma R&D. You can now nominate someone to be highlighted in this year’s special report. Details are here.

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FDA spells out how can­cer drug de­vel­op­ers can use one tri­al for both ac­cel­er­at­ed and full ap­provals

The FDA’s Oncology Center of Excellence has been a bright spot within the agency in terms of speeding new treatments to patients. That flexibility was on full display this morning as FDA released new draft guidance spelling out exactly how oncology drug developers can fulfill both the accelerated and full approval’s requirements with just a single randomized controlled trial.

While Congress recently passed legislation that will allow FDA to require confirmatory trials to be recruiting and ongoing prior to granting an accelerated approval, the agency is now making clear that the initial trial used to win the AA, if designed appropriately, can also serve as the trial for converting the accelerated approval into a full approval.

Clay Siegall, Morphimmune CEO

Up­dat­ed: Ex-Seagen chief Clay Sie­gall emerges as CEO of pri­vate biotech

Clay Siegall will be back in the CEO seat, taking the helm of a private startup working on targeted cancer therapies.

It’s been almost a year since Siegall resigned from Seagen, the biotech he co-founded and led for more than 20 years, in the wake of domestic violence allegations by his then-wife. His eventual successor, David Epstein, sold the company to Pfizer in a $43 billion deal unveiled last week.

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FDA ad­vi­sors unan­i­mous­ly rec­om­mend ac­cel­er­at­ed ap­proval for Bio­gen's ALS drug

A panel of outside advisors to the FDA unanimously recommended that the agency grant accelerated approval to Biogen’s ALS drug tofersen despite the drug failing the primary goal of its Phase III study, an endorsement that could pave a path forward for the treatment.

By a 9-0 vote, members of the Peripheral and Central Nervous System Drugs Advisory Committee said there was sufficient evidence that tofersen’s effect on a certain protein associated with ALS is reasonably likely to predict a benefit for patients. But panelists stopped short of advocating for a full approval, voting 3-5 against (with one abstention) and largely citing the failed pivotal study.

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Sijmen de Vries, Pharming CEO

FDA ap­proves Pharm­ing drug for ul­tra-rare im­mun­od­e­fi­cien­cy dis­ease

US regulators cleared an ultra-rare drug from Pharming Group, by way of Novartis, on Friday afternoon.

The Dutch biotech said the FDA greenlit leniolisib for an immunodeficiency disease known as activated phosphoinositide 3-kinase delta (PI3Kδ) syndrome, or APDS. People 12 years and older can receive the oral drug, to be marketed as Joenja, beginning early next month, Pharming said, five days ahead of the decision deadline set by the FDA as part of a priority review.

Eu­ro­pean doc­tors di­al up dig­i­tal com­mu­ni­ca­tion with phar­mas, but still lean to­ward in-per­son med meet­ings, study finds

As in-person sales rep access declines in the big five European countries, a corresponding uptick in virtual rep access is happening. It’s not surprising, but it does run counter to pharma companies’ assessment – along with long-held sales rep sway in Europe – that in-person access hadn’t changed.

CMI Media Group and Medscape’s recent study reports that 75% of physicians in the EU5 countries of Spain, Germany, Italy, France and the UK already limit engagements with pharma sales reps, and 25% of those surveyed plan to decrease time with reps.

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Judge al­lows ex­pert tes­ti­mo­ny in GSK tri­al al­leg­ing Zan­tac link to can­cer

A California judge will allow a plaintiff in a state court case to introduce expert testimony connecting a potential carcinogen in former blockbuster medicine Zantac to cancer.

The order was handed down on Thursday from state judge Evelio Grillo, who is now allowing both parties to introduce expert testimony in an upcoming trial after what’s known as a Sargon hearing, where a judge determines the admissibility of expert witnesses and expert opinions.

Mark Womack, BioCina CEO

Q&A: BioCi­na’s new CEO Mark Wom­ack on the CD­MO he says is 'worth trav­el­ing over'

A handful of CDMOs have made changes at the top over the past few weeks, including Genezen and Curia.

That also includes Australian CDMO BioCina, which announced last week that Mark Womack would be taking the helm. Womack previously served as chief business officer at AGC Biologics, CEO of Indian manufacturer Stelis Biopharma and most recently, CEO at CDMO KBI Biopharma and Selexis SA.

BioCina completed the takeover of a Pfizer manufacturing facility in Adelaide in 2021 and is now prepping for wider growth. Endpoints News sat down with Womack to discuss his new role, plans for the future, and how to compete in the wider CDMO market. This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.