Venrock joins the biotech VC fundraising game, tossing $447M into a $4.3B pot of new money

Bong Koh and Nimish Shah (Venrock)

April 22, 2020 04:34 PM EDT

Venrock joins the biotech VC fundraising game, tossing $447M into a $4.3B pot of new money

John Carroll

Editor & Founder

It’s not unusual to find the partners at Venrock traveling in the A-list section of biotech. They like to find some of the more mature startups headed toward IPOs or some new arrivals on the public market — sticking with deep-pocket investors looking to do big things. And they clearly have a big appetite for rounds that can range up into the stratosphere.

It looks like they’re going to remain in that neighborhood for some time to come.

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5AM Ventures: Fueling the Next Generation of Innovators

Brian Abrahams

Managing Director and Co-Head of Biotechnology Equity Research

By RBC Capital Markets
With Andy Schwab, Co-Founder and Managing Partner at 5AM Ventures

Key Points

Prescription Digital Therapeutics, cell therapy technologies, and in silico medicines will be a vital part of future treatment modalities.
Unlocking the potential of the microbiome could be the missing link to better disease diagnosis.
Growing links between academia, industry, and venture capital are spinning out more innovative biotech companies.
Biotech is now seen by investors as a growth space as well as a safe haven, fuelling the recent IPO boom.

Hal Barron, GSK via YouTube

January 22, 2021 08:25 AM EST

R&D

What does $29B buy you in Big Pharma? In GlaxoSmithKline’s case, a whole lot of uncomfortable questions about the pipeline

John Carroll

Editor & Founder

Talk about your bad timing.

A little over a week ago, GSK R&D chief Hal Barron marked his third anniversary at the research helm by taking a turn at the virtual podium during JP Morgan to make the case that he and his team had built a valuable late-stage pipeline capable of churning out more than 10 blockbusters in the next 5 years.

And then, just days later, one of the cancer drugs he bet big on as a top prospect — bintrafusp, partnered with Merck KGaA — failed its first pivotal test in non-small cell lung cancer.

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Janet Woodcock (AP Images)

January 21, 2021 07:49 AM ESTUpdated 08:04 AM

People

Regulatory

Endpoints poll: Janet Woodcock takes the (interim) helm at the FDA. And a large majority of our readers want her to stay there

Amber Tong

Senior Editor

It’s official: Janet Woodcock is now the acting chief of the FDA.

And — according to an Endpoints poll — most industry readers would like her to stay there, although a significant minority is strongly opposed.

To recap: Joe Biden is reportedly choosing between Woodcock and former deputy FDA commissioner Joshua Sharfstein as his nominee for the permanent position. Given their respective track records, the decision is set to determine the agency’s lodestar for years to come.

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An Endpoints Zoom meeting; and the email header employees will see if your company is a Premium subscriber

January 21, 2021 07:01 AM ESTUpdated 10:11 AM

Publisher's note

What’s next for Endpoints — and how to support our independent biopharma news mission

Arsalan Arif

Publisher & Founder

The firehose of biopharma news is gushing these days.

That’s why broader and deeper is the theme for 2021 at Endpoints. You can expect new coverage outside our core R&D focus, with deeper reporting in some key areas. When John Carroll and I launched Endpoints nearly five years ago, we were wading in waist-high waters. Now we’re a team of 25 full-time staffers (and growing) with plans to cover the flood of biopharma news, Endpoints-style.

Janet Woodcock and Joshua Sharfstein (AP, Images)

January 19, 2021 09:38 AM EST

Regulatory

Poll: Should Joshua Sharfstein or Janet Woodcock lead the FDA from here?

John Carroll

Editor & Founder

It’s time for a new FDA commissioner to come on board, a rite of passage for Joe Biden’s administration that should help seal the new president’s rep on seeking out the experts to lead the government over the next 4 years.

As of now, the competition for the top job appears to have narrowed down to 2 people: The longtime CDER chief Janet Woodcock and Joshua Sharfstein, the former principal deputy at the FDA under Peggy Hamburg. Both were appointed by Barack Obama.

Charlie Fuchs, Roche and Genentech global head of product development for oncology and hematology (Yale Cancer Center)

January 22, 2021 10:47 AM ESTUpdated 41 minutes ago

People

Yale cancer specialist Charlie Fuchs tapped as new global development chief for Roche/Genentech

John Carroll

Editor & Founder

Roche and their big sub Genentech have just recruited a top cancer specialist at Yale to head up global product development in oncology and hematology.

I just got word that the pharma giant, which leads one of the most active cancer research operations in the world, recruited Charlie Fuchs, director of the Yale Cancer Center and physician-in-chief of Smilow Cancer Hospital. He’ll join the global operation March 1 and will be based in South San Francisco, where Genentech is based.

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Jonathan Weissman (MIT)

January 22, 2021 10:30 AM ESTUpdated 10:57 AM

Discovery

In Focus

Can a new CRISPR technique unlock the secrets of how cancer spreads?

Jason Mast

Editor

Jonathan Weissman’s team watched the cancer cells spread across the doomed mouse. Engineered with a bioluminescent enzyme, they appeared in scans first as a small navy blue diamond lodged near the heart; a week later, as a triangle splayed across the mouse’s upper body, with streaks of green and two distinct bright red hubs of activity. By day 54, the mouse resembled a lava lamp.

The images would have been familiar to any cancer biologist, but they didn’t actually tell you much about what was going on: why the cancer was metastasizing or which cells were responsible. For that, Weissman’s team had designed a new tool. Inside the original navy blue diamond, they had engineered the microbiological equivalent of an airplane’s black box — a “molecular recorder” that, after the mouse’s death, could allow them to extract the cells and wind back intimate footage of a single cancer’s ascent.

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Kimberly Smith, ViiV R&D chief (ViiV Healthcare)

January 21, 2021 05:10 PM ESTUpdated 06:30 PM

Regulatory

After stinging FDA setback, GlaxoSmithKline's ViiV finally notches US approval for long-acting HIV injection

Kyle Blankenship

Senior Editor

GlaxoSmithKline’s HIV unit ViiV was dealt a stinging loss back in late 2019 when the FDA slammed the brakes on its application for a once-monthly injection based on manufacturing issues. Now, with that roadblock in the rearview, ViiV has finally made good on its promise to change the HIV game.

The FDA on Thursday approved ViiV’s Cabenuva (cabotegravir and rilpivirine) as a long acting, once-monthly therapy for HIV-positive adults who are virologically suppressed and on a stable antiviral regimen.

Deval Patrick (Mary Altaffer/AP Images)

January 21, 2021 10:55 AM ESTUpdated 12:28 PM

People

Deval Patrick joins Cerevel board, further intertwining company with Bain Capital

Max Gelman

Associate Editor

Tony Coles’ team at Cerevel Therapeutics is adding two high-profile board members, including an ex-governor that has lots of connections to the Boston area where the biotech is based.

Former Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick is hopping on Cerevel’s board of directors, the company announced Thursday, joining less than three months after Cerevel went public on the backs of Perceptive’s ARYA II SPAC. And in a twist, Pfizer’s new business development chief Deborah Baron is joining the board as well, about three years after the Big Pharma shuttered the neuroscience pipeline that Cerevel is seeking to revive.

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