VC style returns on ‘unsexy’ public health bets? Gates-backed Adjuvant Capital gathers $300M to mend a ‘failure of imagination’

Glenn Rockman (Adjuvant Capital)

February 18, 2021 05:00 AM ESTUpdated 06:18 AM

VC style returns on 'unsexy' public health bets? Gates-backed Adjuvant Capital gathers $300M to mend a 'failure of imagination'

Amber Tong

Senior Editor

Glenn Rockman was summoned, about three years into a senior role on JP Morgan’s non-profit investment banking team, to a special assignment reviewing a pipeline of drugs, vaccines and diagnostics for neglected diseases the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation had been funding since the millennium.

By then in 2010, many of these assets were moving close to regulatory approval, and the philanthropists thought they represented an attractive risk profile combined with interesting commercial potential. But they couldn’t find any private sector investors to take them over the finish line.

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Targeting a Potential Vulnerability of Certain Cancers with DNA Damage Response

Andree Blaukat

Every individual’s DNA is unique, and because of this, every patient responds differently to disease and treatment. It is astonishing how four tiny building blocks of our DNA – A, T, C, G – dictate our health, disease, and how we age.

The tricky thing about DNA is that it is constantly exposed to damage by sources such as ultraviolet light, certain chemicals, toxins, and even natural biochemical processes inside our cells.¹ If ignored, DNA damage will accumulate in replicating cells, giving rise to mutations that can lead to premature aging, cancer, and other diseases.

February 25, 2021 08:31 AM ESTUpdated 09:46 AM

Editor's note

Follow biotechs going public with the Endpoints News IPO Tracker

Max Gelman

Associate Editor

The Endpoints News team is continuing to track IPO filings for 2021, and we’ve designed a new tracker page for the effort.

Check it out here: Biopharma IPOs 2021 from Endpoints News

You’ll be able to find all the biotechs that have filed and priced so far this year, sortable by quarter and listed by newest first. As of the time of publishing on Feb. 25, there have already been 16 biotechs debuting on Nasdaq so far this year, with an additional four having filed their S-1 paperwork.

Steve Cutler, Icon CEO (Icon)

February 24, 2021 10:50 AM ESTUpdated 11:53 AM

Deals

In the biggest CRO takeover in years, Icon doles out $12B for PRA Health Sciences to focus on decentralized clinical work

Max Gelman

Associate Editor

Contract research M&A had a healthy run in recent years before recently petering out. But with the market ripe for a big buyout and the Covid-19 pandemic emphasizing the importance of decentralized trials, Wednesday saw a tectonic shift in the CRO world.

Icon, the Dublin-based CRO, will acquire PRA Health Sciences for $12 billion in a move that will shake up the highest rungs of a fragmented market. The merger would combine the 5th- and 6th-largest CROs by 2020 revenue, according to Icon, and the merger will set the newco up to be the second-largest global CRO behind only IQVIA.

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Tom Barnes (Orna)

February 24, 2021 07:00 AM ESTUpdated 07:20 AM

Startups

Cell/Gene Tx

The mRNA era is here. MPM believes the future belongs to oRNA — and Big Pharma wants a seat at the table

Amber Tong

Senior Editor

If the ultra-fast clinical development of Covid-19 vaccines opened the world’s eyes to the promises of messenger RNA, the subsequent delays in supply offered a crash course on the ultra-complex process of producing them. Even before the formulation and fill-finish steps, mRNA is the precious end product from an arduous journey involving enzyme-aided transcription, modification and purification.

For Bristol Myers Squibb, Novartis Institutes for Biomedical Research, Gilead’s Kite and Astellas, it’s time to rethink the way therapeutic RNA is engineered.

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Michael Rome (Foresite)

February 25, 2021 12:33 PM EST

Financing

In search of 'household healthcare brands of the future,' Foresite Capital raises $969M to satiate a tech-heavy appetite

Amber Tong

Senior Editor

Back in April 2018, just before Foresite Capital unveiled its $668 million Fund IV and a strategy to focus on tech-driven life science bets, one of its portfolio companies quietly made an announcement.

Fount Therapeutics, a drug discovery outfit backed by Foresite and Eshelman Ventures, had raised $22 million in Series A cash to hatch several fledgling spinouts. “The first ‘NewCo,’ Kinnate, will be focused on developing precision oncology treatments,” read a press release.

Masayoshi Son, SoftBank CEO (glen photo/Shutterstock)

February 24, 2021 07:34 AM EST

People

Financing

Japan's SoftBank plots billions in biotech investments in move that could keep the valuation flood rising — report

Kyle Blankenship

Managing Editor

The valuation crazy train in biotech continues to roll into the new year with more than a dozen companies taking a chance on Nasdaq and money flowing in from all sides. Now, a Japanese institutional investor is reportedly weighing an entry into the market in a big way — will it keep the bitcoin-esque flood rising?

Already a part-time investor in biotech, SoftBank could drop billions of dollars into the industry as part of helmsman Masayoshi Son’s plan to spend around $80 billion of the firm’s own assets, according to a report from Bloomberg citing people familiar with the plan.

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February 25, 2021 09:34 AM EST

Pharma

S&P expects steady erosion in Big Pharma's credit profile in 2021 as new M&A deals roll in — but don't underestimate their underlying strength

John Carroll

Editor & Founder

S&P Global has taken a look at the dominant forces shaping the pharma market and come to the conclusion that there will be more downgrades than upgrades in 2021 — the 8th straight year of steady decline.

But it’s not all bad news. Some things are looking up, and there’s still plenty of money to be made in an industry that enjoys a 30% to 40% profit margin, once you factor in steep R&D expenses.

Tal Zaks, Moderna CMO (AP Photo/Rodrique Ngowi, via still image from video)

February 25, 2021 09:17 AM EST

R&D

Manufacturing

CMO Tal Zaks bids Moderna a surprise adieu as biotech projects $18.4B in revenue, plots post-Covid expansion

Jason Mast

Editor

How do you exit a company after six years in style? Developing one of the most lucrative and life-saving products in pharma history is probably not the worst way to go.

Tal Zaks, Moderna’s CMO since 2015, will leave the mRNA biotech in September, the biotech disclosed in their annual report this morning. The company has already retained the recruitment firm Russell Reynolds to find a replacement.

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Ken Frazier, Merck CEO (Bess Adler/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

February 25, 2021 07:43 AM ESTUpdated 10:46 AM

Deals

Pharma

UPDATED: Merck takes a swing at the IL-2 puzzlebox with a $1.85B play for buzzy Pandion and its autoimmune hopefuls

Kyle Blankenship

Managing Editor

When Roger Perlmutter bid farewell to Merck late last year, the drugmaker perhaps best known now for sales giant Keytruda signaled its intent to take a swing at early-stage novelty with the appointment of discovery head Dean Li. Now, Merck is signing a decent-sized check to bring an IL-2 moonshot into the fold.

Merck will shell out roughly $1.85 billion for Pandion Pharmaceuticals, a biotech hoping to gin up regulatory T cells (Tregs) to treat a range of autoimmune disorders, the drugmaker said Thursday.

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