Innovative Startups 2013
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DATA PAGE Innovative startups 2013 Brady Huggett S firms, particularly companies from the Boston area, continue the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia’s decision to support a startup Uto dominate Nature Biotechnology’s listing of innovative startups, is notable. In total, the United States accounts for about two-thirds of ranked in order of the 10 largest A rounds. This year’s list is notable firms receiving biotech A rounds in the broader life science field (Fig. 1); for the proportion of startups focusing on experimental gene thera- the United Kingdom ranks a very distant second. Although relatively pies; indeed, firms developing adeno-associated virus (AAV) platforms few biotechs in France and Switzerland received A rounds, companies garnered three of last year’s largest A rounds. A familiar group of early in those countries pulled in more on average than companies in the stage funds participated in most of the financings in Table 1, although United States (Table 2). Table 1 Top 10 A rounds in 2013 for innovative startups Company Amount raised ($M); date; investors Scientific founders Other Technology Juno $120; Dec. 4; Arch Venture Renier Brentjens, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Hans Bishop, Juno CEO and former Engineered chimeric antigen Therapeutics Partners, Crestline Investors Center (MSKCC); Phil Greenberg, Fred Hutchinson executive in residence at Warburg receptor adoptive T cell therapy (Seattle) Cancer Research Center (FHCRC) and the University of Pincus; Larry Corey, president and direc- against cancer Washington; Michael Jensen, University of Washington tor of FHCRC; Richard Klausner, senior School of Medicine; Stan Riddell, FHCRC and the vice president and chief medical officer University of Washington School of Medicine; of Illumina, chairman of Audax Health; Isabelle Rivière and Michel Sadelain, MSKCC Robert Nelsen, managing director of ARCH Venture Partners Spark $50; Oct. 22; The Children’s Jean Bennett, University of Pennsylvania; Beverly Davidson, Jeffrey Marrazzo, Spark president and AAV gene therapies against Therapeutics Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) University of Iowa; Katherine High and J. Fraser Wright, CEO, industry entrepreneur blindness and hemophilia (Philadelphia) CHOP Jounce $47; Feb. 14; Third Rock Ventures James Allison and Padmanee Sharma, University of Texas Not applicable Immunomodulatory therapeutics Therapeutics MD Anderson Cancer Center; Thomas Gajewski, University against cancer (Cambridge, of Chicago; Drew Pardoll, Johns Hopkins University; Massachusetts) Louis Weiner, Georgetown University Effector $45; May 20; US Venture Partners, Davide Ruggero and Kevan Shokat, University of California, Steve Worland, formerly CEO of Anadys; Small molecule translation Therapeutics Abingworth Management, Novartis San Francisco Siegfried Reich, formerly research regulators in cancer (San Diego) Venture Funds, SR One, Astellas fellow at the Lilly Biotech Center in San Venture, Osage University Partners, Diego; Kevin Eastwood, formerly senior Mission Bay Capital vice president of corporate development at Anadys Mitokyne $45; Oct. 7; Astellas Pharma, MPM Johan Auwerx, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne; Kazumi Shiosaki, managing director of Small molecule enhancers of (Boston) Capital, Longwood Founders Fund Andrew Dillin, University of California, Berkeley; MPM Capital mitochondrial function Ronald Evans, Salk Institute for Biological Studies; H. Robert Horvitz, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT); Jodi Nunnari, University of California, Davis Editas Medicine $43; Nov. 25; Flagship Ventures, Feng Zhang, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard; Kevin Bitterman, interim president of Gene editing and clustered regu- Nature America, Inc. All rights reserved. America, Inc. Nature (Boston) Polaris Venture Partners, Third George Church, Harvard Medical School (HMS); Editas Medicine and principal at Polaris larly interspaced short palindromic 4 Rock Ventures, Partners Innovation Jennifer Doudna, University of California, Berkeley; Partners repeats (CRISPR) and transcription Fund Keith Joung, Massachusetts General Hospital and HMS; activator–like effector nuclease David Liu, Harvard University (TALEN) technology © 201 GenSight $41.6; April 8; Novartis Venture José-Alain Sahel, Pierre and Marie Curie University; Bernard Gilly, previously chairman and AAV2 gene therapies against blind- Biologics (Paris) Funds, Abingworth Management, Botond Roska, Friedrich Miescher Institute; Jean Bennett, CEO of Fovea Pharmaceuticals ness and retinal degenerative Versant Ventures, Index Ventures University of Pennsylvania; Luk Vandenberghe, Harvard diseases University; Serge Picaud, Vision Institute npg Sideris $32; Oct. 22; MPM Capital, Raymond Bergeron, University of Florida Thomas Neenan, chief technology Lead is an orally active, small Pharmaceuticals Hatteras Venture Partners, Osage officer and former CEO of Viscus molecule, iron-chelating drug (Boston) University Partners Biologics candidate Audentes $30; July 18; OrbiMed Advisors, Thomas Schuetz, formerly VP of clinical affairs at TKT, Matthew Patterson, former entrepreneur- AAV gene therapy against X-linked Therapeutics 5AM Ventures, Versant Ventures which pioneered the gene activation platform in-residence with OrbiMed Advisors myotubular myopathy, Pompe dis- (San Francisco) ease and other rare muscle diseases Syros $30; April 11; Arch Venture Richard Young, MIT; James Bradner, HMS and Dana-Farber Cofounded with ARCH Venture Partners Gene expression; Syros is working Pharmaceuticals Partners, Flagship Ventures, WuXi Cancer Institute; Nathanael Gray, HMS and Dana-Farber and Flagship’s VentureLabs unit with a new class of gene control ele- (Watertown, PharmaTech Corporate Venture, Cancer Institute ments it calls super-enhancers and Massachusetts) private investors applying them to cancer Source: BCIQ: BioCentury Online Intelligence; company websites 70 66 Table 2 Total, average A round by country, 2013 Number of A rounds Country (number of rounds) Total amount raised ($M) Average raised ($M) 60 France (5) 99.9 19.9 50 Switzerland (2) 37.6 18.8 United States (66) 1,100.0 16.7 40 Ireland (1) 11.9 11.9 30 Germany (4) 46.0 11.5 United Kingdom (10) 104.5 10.4 20 The Netherlands (2) 16.2 8.1 10 Denmark (1) 6.5 6.5 10 5 4 22211 11 11 1 Norway (2) 12.4 6.2 0 Finland (1) 4.6 4.6 US UK Canada (1) 3.8 3.8 France Norway Iceland Ireland Finland Austria Germany Sweden DenmarkCanada Switzerland Austria (1) 2.7 2.7 The Netherlands Sweden (1) 1.7 1.7 Figure 1 Startups by country, 2013. Source: BCIQ: BioCentury Online Iceland (1) 0.9 0.9 Intelligence Source: BCIQ: BioCentury Online Intelligence NATURE BIOTECHNOLOGY VOLUME 32 NUMBER 2 FEBRUARY 2014 127.