Q&A: Joe Jimenez talks about sal­vaging ‘stuck’ drugs and why a sub­stance abuse treat­ment could be worth bil­lions of dol­lars

For four years, for­mer No­var­tis CEO Joe Jimenez and his re­search right-hand, Mark Fish­man, have been run­ning Adi­tum Bio. The Oak­land, CA-based ven­ture firm in-li­cens­es drugs on the cusp of hu­man tri­als and puts them in­to in­di­vid­ual com­pa­nies that can be sold off if the ear­ly-stage re­sults are good.

They’re test­ing a new ap­proach to biotech in­vest­ing and drug de­vel­op­ment with the goal of cre­at­ing two to three com­pa­nies each year. With a $133 mil­lion first fund and a $250 mil­lion fol­low-up, Adi­tum has formed 10 biotechs so far. An­oth­er two or three are ex­pect­ed to launch be­fore they raise an even big­ger third fund, like­ly next year.

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