Nearly halfway to its goal of raising $100 million, an intriguing venture that’s part drug development accelerator and part early-stage investor has begun picking promising projects it hopes will someday become drugs that fill a market need.
Cleveland-based BioMotiv said this week it added another $25 million to the $21 million it raised last fall. Nationwide Mutual Insurance Company, along with several individuals, have joined University Hospitals and the Harrington Family as investors, the company said.
BioMotiv is the for-profit affiliate of University Hospitals’ Harrington Project, a $250 million initiative created to bridge the “valley of death” in drug development by accelerating the development and commercialization of medical breakthroughs from research centers.
The non-profit components of the Harrington Project award grant support and resources to physician-scientists who have made promising discoveries. BioMotiv is a mission-aligned commercial entity that in-licenses technologies, uses its own leadership team to move the discoveries into 1b/2a clinical studies and then out-licenses the technology to drug companies or VC firms. It works closely with the non-profit side of the Harrington Project, but isn’t restricted to selecting just from those programs.
I asked Shah what he thinks is drawing investors to BioMotiv’s unique model. He, of course, couldn’t speak on their behalf, but pointed out a few things he considers differentiators. First has been a stellar advisory board that includes six former heads of R&D at pharma companies. Then there’s the efficiency built into the investment model, he said. Rather than investing in a management team or bringing one on board as a traditional VC firm would do, BioMotiv has one management team that oversees the development of all of its portfolio programs. “We can focus the resources of the team on the programs that continue to show promise,” he said.
Shah said the company has looked at nearly 200 technologies from research institutions, disease foundations and industry sources. It’s already selected a few to move forward with, and an SEC filing made last month revealed that at least one company had been started and funded. Shah said he hopes to reveal the selected projects soon.
“The odds of success are long,” he said, “so it’s about building a broad portfolio.”
A Deep-dive Into Specialty Pharma
A specialty drug is a class of prescription medications used to treat complex, chronic or rare medical conditions. Although this classification was originally intended to define the treatment of rare, also termed “orphan” diseases, affecting fewer than 200,000 people in the US, more recently, specialty drugs have emerged as the cornerstone of treatment for chronic and complex diseases such as cancer, autoimmune conditions, diabetes, hepatitis C, and HIV/AIDS.
[Image credit: Flickr user CENews]
