Category Archives: Atlas Venture

We just held our 2022 Annual General Meeting for our investors, and a few weeks ago convened our Atlas Venture Retreat – both in person for the first time in 3 years.  Kicking off each of these meetings is our

We just held our first-ever, and hopefully only, virtual Atlas Venture Annual Meeting for our investors. Although science is winning in this pandemic, we’re clearly not back to normal yet so felt it prudent to shift to a virtual format.

By Nello Mainolfi, PhD, Co-Founder, President and CEO of Kymera Therapeutics, as part of the From The Trenches feature of LifeSciVC. The inherent ability to combine the power of genetic-like knockdown with the flexibility of small molecules; the power to

It’s that time of year again when we pause to reflect on the state of the industry – and there’s more to focus on in biopharma today than just the drug pricing debate. As I described last year, we host

Today Novartis announced the acquisition of IFM Therapeutics’ portfolio of NLRP3 antagonists, via the purchase of IFM Tre, a subsidiary of IFM (here, here). These immunomodulatory medicines target the inflammasome, a key innate immune node whose pathologic chronic activation is associated with

Back in September 2018, the FDA approved Lilly’s Emgality, an anti-CGRP antibody therapy, for the preventative treatment of episodic and chronic migraine. Arteaus Therapeutics, a biotech company founded by Atlas Venture in 2011, played a critical role in Emgality’s early

At the end of every year, we host both our Atlas Venture Annual Meeting for our fund investors (Limited Partners) and our Atlas Retreat for senior industry executives.  As a kickoff for these two meetings, we typically open with a

Another year, another JPM week. With a weekend to recuperate and reflect, I come away more concerned than ever about JPM and our industry. For context, by JPM I don’t mean the actual J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference at the Westin

Building a shared sense of community helps create the relationships and interactions that bring people together and make teams and sector ecosystems successful. Community is a core part of building a distinctive culture. With a portfolio of related investments, industry

Today we announced the closing of Atlas Venture Fund XI, a $350M investment vehicle focused exclusively on early stage biotech investing. Since launching our fundraising process in April, we’ve received a truly humbling level of support and interest in our

We’re excited to announce Kevin Bitterman has joined Atlas Venture as a partner! Kevin is well known in the Boston biotech ecosystem, having spent the last dozen-plus years on the life science team at Polaris Partners. He brings a great

Today Gilead announced the acquisition of Nimbus’ lead program targeting NASH and related metabolic disorders for $400M upfront and up to another $800M in development and regulatory milestones (here). This transformative deal is the culmination of over five years of work on

Today we announced the acquisition of Padlock Therapeutics by BMS for up to $600M in total deal value (here), bringing a bittersweet end to a great startup story and the start of a promising and likely productive portfolio for BMS.

It’s hard to believe how time flies, but I started this LifeSciVC biotech-blogging experiment five years ago today. Since that initial post in March 2011, exactly 250 blogs have gone live, making it an opportune time to step back and

Yesterday we were excited to see four Atlas portfolio companies selected to receive “Fierce15” awards from FierceBiotech as part of the 2015 “class”. It’s a wonderful honor for them, and for Atlas, and thought it a great moment to reflect

Earlier this week Atlas Venture closed Fund X at $280M, completing our transition to a biotech-only venture firm. After announcing the split of our life science and technology franchises in October 2014 (here), we embarked on the hard work of

This afternoon Nature Biotechnology published its annual review of the “some of the best that academic research had to offer the startup world in 2014.” The article, in the March 2015 issue, covers the editors’ selections of the top startups

Another day, another announcement about great data from immuno-oncology.  It’s clearly one of the hottest fields in biopharma today, and has been for a few years.  The opening paragraph of a recent Leerink report by Seamus Fernandez and team on

This blog was written by Mike Gilman, Atlas’ EIR and CEO of Padlock Therapeutics, as part of the “From the Trenches” feature of LifeSciVC. I thought I was done with immunology. I’m not formally trained as an immunologist, but I fell for it hard

Immuno-oncology, antibody-drug conjugates, and cancer metabolism are three of the hottest and potentially most transformative approaches in cancer research today, and have occupied center stage at recent oncology meetings like ASCO and AACR (here, here). The immuno-oncology (I/O) field has

Today Synlogic announced that the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation joined the Series A financing to help power up its platform around developing therapeutic microbes (here).  Combining compelling elements of two exciting fields – engineering organisms with synthetic biology and

Today we’re excited to announce a new chapter in the Atlas story – we are transitioning from our ‘two franchise, one firm’ diversified venture model into two specialized, independent firms focused on technology and life sciences investing, in order to better capture

Thrilled to announce today that Jason Rhodes is joining Atlas! Many of you already know Jason, but here’s the scoop. He was the President and CFO at Epizyme, where he was instrumental in architecting the company’s incredible journey from epigenetics drug discovery

Raising money is a huge part of being a CEO, but nothing can fully prepare you for the experience of taking your company public.   Together with our team at Zafgen, I recently had the experience of taking our company public

In early 2013, I enlisted as an entrepreneur-in-residence (EIR) with the Atlas Venture life science investment team as the firm focused on a seed-led investing strategy as a core tenant of Fund IX (here).  I viewed it as a great

Last week we priced the IPO for Zafgen – embarking on a new phase for the company (here).  Upsized at the top of the range, the offering is a testimony to the great team and exciting story at Zafgen. In line

Today we’re excited to announce the addition of Dave Grayzel as a Partner on our life sciences team.  Dave has been a key contributor to our strategy since joining Atlas Venture in 2010 to lead our asset-centric, collaborative investing initiative

With today’s announcement of Roche’s deal with Spero Therapeutics LLC (here), and last month’s news regarding Biogen’s deal with Ataxion (here), we’ve added further momentum to our strategy of working closely with larger BioPharma partners to create innovative “external R&D”

Three years ago this month I started this LifeSciVC blog experiment and its been more fun and rewarding than I would have expected. As I wrote in my first post, the reasons I started blogging were to add a voice

Today Novartis announced its acquisition of CoStim Pharmaceuticals, a young biotech company focused on next generation approaches in the exciting immuno-oncology field (here).  Their oncology capabilities and commitment to anti-cancer immune mechanisms made them an ideal partner for us at

Today Zafgen announced its initial results from proof-of-concept study in patients with an obesity-related orphan disease called Prader-Willi Syndrome (PWS). The news was also covered by Andrew Pollack in the NY Times this morning (here) so I won’t bother with

Today, we are excited to announce that we’ve successfully exited Arteaus Therapeutics to Eli Lilly (see announcement here, here).  It’s fair to say it’s been a superbly executed example of R&D externalization and a win–win for Lilly and Arteaus. Before

A couple years ago we unveiled a new startup called Nimbus Discovery LLC which was experimenting with a new model that combined three key elements: Schrodinger’s cutting edge in silico drug screening and design platform, a truly virtual and globally

Today we announced a pair of Corporate Strategic Partnerships (CSPs) with Amgen and Novartis, as part of our closing of Fund IX, with the aim of working closely with them during our venture creation process of starting new biopharma companies. 

Last week, Atlas Venture closed Fund IX at $265M, as reported this morning by Dan Primack.  We set out to raise $250M, and closed above-target with great support from our existing LP’s and some great new ones.  With this closing,