Ex-Bio­gen chief George Scan­gos to spear­head a Gates-backed start­up with big plans to fight in­fec­tious dis­eases

Ex-Bio­gen CEO George Scan­gos won’t be spend­ing much time be­tween jobs. Arch Ven­tures co-founder Robert Nelsen has re­cruit­ed Scan­gos to run an am­bi­tious new start­up of his fo­cused on amp­ing up an im­mune sys­tem at­tack on some per­ni­cious vi­ral and bac­te­r­i­al dis­eases like tu­ber­cu­lo­sis.

Nelsen, who nev­er does any­thing small, has al­ready com­mit­ted $150 mil­lion to the ven­ture — dubbed Vir Biotech­nol­o­gy. He’s be­ing joined by the Bill & Melin­da Gates Foun­da­tion along­side “sov­er­eign wealth funds, pub­lic mu­tu­al funds and promi­nent in­di­vid­u­als and fam­i­ly of­fices” that plan to put up hun­dreds of mil­lions more to back their work.

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