Francesco De Ru­ber­tis makes his lega­cy play, re­cruit­ing star ex­ecs and rolling up 10 biotech star­tups in­to a $250M gam­ble on cre­at­ing some­thing new in phar­ma

A promi­nent ven­ture start­up shop with deep roots in Eu­ro­pean R&D cir­cles is mak­ing a $250 mil­lion wa­ger that it can cre­ate a new kind of phar­ma com­pa­ny — one with some star port­fo­lio play­ers promis­ing to come to­geth­er to lead the way to uni­corn-style suc­cess rates.

Saurabh Sa­ha, whose ca­reer has wound in and out of big phar­ma and the start­up world, has left his post as glob­al head of trans­la­tion­al re­search for Bris­tol My­ers and tak­en the top spot as CEO of the new com­pa­ny, called Centes­sa, for rea­sons I’ll ex­plain soon.

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