GSK投入5000万美元与Sanderling支持新生生物技术公司

开始神话

2013年1月11日讯  GlaxoSmithKline公司将可能将发展目光投向美国西部。GSK近日在San Francisco召开的J.P. Morgan confab上表示公司现已投入5000万美元和Sanderling Ventures公司共同设立了一个总额达2亿5千万的基金专门用于支持新的生物技术企业的建立。

Glaxo公司的Melinda Stubbee表示这次的投资配合早先GSK在Index Ventures公司的投资将在公司在美国西部的发展计划中起到重要作用。而Sanderling公司自从1979年建立以来已经自助了90家企业的建立，一些优秀的企业如Dendreon公司、Regeneron公司等都收到过其资助。近些年来，Sanderling公司在生物领域的投资渐趋谨慎，最大一笔投资要追溯到2004年。这些年来，Sanderling公司将近一半的资金投给了新药研发项目，另一半则是支持了医疗设备和信息技术相关公司。

详细英文报道:

GlaxoSmithKline ($GSK) is headed west. The drug giant revealed at the J.P. Morgan confab in San Francisco that it has put up $50 million of a $250 million life sciences fund that has been put together by San Mateo, CA-based Sanderling Ventures, which a spokesperson says will help fill a geographic gap in their strategy to seed new biotech startups.

Glaxo's Melinda Stubbee tells FierceBiotech that the fund will be a player in the western U.S., with GSK matching its earlier investments in Index Ventures, which is backing startups in Europe, the U.S, and Israel, and an innovation fund for Canada. This new fund is dubbed Sanderling 7, she adds. "They have" the money, she says, "but I can't say who" put up the rest.

Sanderling has backed about 90 upstarts since it opened its doors in 1979. Its portfolio includes big names such as Dendreon ($DNDN) and Regeneron ($REGN). Endocyte and Pacira went public, and Taligen was acquired by Alexion ($ALXN) for $111 million. GSK, meanwhile, has been acutely aware of the tough financing environment for biotech startups, which produce the kind of new ideas and technologies that the giants benefit from as well.

But Sanderling has kept a decidedly low profile in recent years. Its last fund--which raised $421 million--came together way back in 2004, a different era for the biotech industry. Funds traditionally look to put together new funds after about four years, so GSK's substantial backing must have come as a godsend for the rainmakers at the firm.

Sanderling has specialized in launching startups, with about half of its cash reserved for drug developers and the other half going to medical devices and information technology.

"We believe strongly that if you build a company, that's where the real significant return on investment comes," Sanderling's Robert McNeil told FierceBiotech several years ago. "Short term investing is not the best way to do things. We're in company-building mode."