A Seattle venture firm focusing its investments on biopharmaceutical companies is raising a new $400 million fund, according to U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filings made last week.
Frazier Healthcare’s seventh fund follows a $600 million fund formed in 2008.
The firm’s investment strategy focuses on companies with development-stage biopharmaceutical therapeutics and occasionally medical devices.
Unlike other firms focusing on mass markets like diabetes, obesity, cardiovascular disease and neurology, Frazier favors products with predictable regulatory pathways, like those targeting drug-resistant antibiotics, oncology and orphan disorders, founder and managing partner Alan Frazier told Xconomy in January. It also looks for companies developing platforms for multiple products suitable for acquisition by a Big Pharma or biotech company.
The firm’s portfolio includes Cerexa, acquired by Forest Labs in 2009; Marcadia Biotech, acquired by Roche in December 2010; Calypso Medical Technologies, sold last year for a fraction of the more than $150 million invested in it; Collegium Pharmaceuticals; and RTP-based Chimerix.
Since its founding by former Immunex and Affymax chief financial officer Frazier in 1991, the firm has invested $1.8 billion in the industry.
Other healthcare venture firms raising money this year for pharmaceutical investing include Catalyst Health Ventures and Index Ventures, which formed a $150 million fund with Johnson & Johnson, GlaxoSmithKline.
[Photo from ponsulak]
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By Deanna Pogorelc MedCity News
Deanna Pogorelc is a Cleveland-based reporter who writes obsessively about life science startups across the country, looking to technology transfer offices, startup incubators and investment funds to see what’s next in healthcare. She has a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Ball State University and previously covered business and education for a northeast Indiana newspaper.More posts by Author
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