Category Archives: Portfolio news

By Jonathan Montagu, CEO of HotSpot Therapeutics, as part of the From The Trenches feature of LifeSciVC HotSpot’s trip to Barcelona for the recent European Society of Medical Oncology (ESMO) Annual Meeting was no ‘European Vacation,’ but it was certainly

By Mike Cloonan, Chief Executive Officer of Sionna Therapeutics, as part of the From The Trenches feature of LifeSciVC The drug development process in rare diseases is rife with challenges especially when companies target significant differentiation or first-in-class targets. Identifying

Novartis recently announced the acquisition of Mariana Oncology, an emerging biotech focused on advancing a radioligand therapeutics platform, for up to $1.75 billion in upfronts and future milestones. The capstone of its three short years of operations, this acquisition represents

By Jeb Keiper, CEO of Nimbus Therapeutics, as part of the From The Trenches feature of LifeSciVC. @JebKeiper Earlier this year, Nimbus closed the sale of our allosteric TYK2 program, which was acquired by Takeda for $4 billion upfront. To

By Jeb Keiper, CEO of Nimbus Therapeutics, as part of the From The Trenches feature of LifeSciVC Forward Nimbus Therapeutics began 14 years ago.  The premise at the time was that putting computational chemistry in the primary position for new

Today we’re thrilled to announce the acquisition of Nimbus’ allosteric Tyk2 autoimmune program by Takeda for up to $6 billion in an upfront and future milestones. As a potential best-in-class asset in the significant new therapeutic category of selective Tyk2

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

August continued to show the biotech market’s resilience in the face of the COVID pandemic with one of the biggest venture fund flows for the month ever, and a half a dozen IPOs. Kymera Therapeutics was one of those August

This blog was written by Mark Manfredi, CEO of Ikena Oncology, and guest blogger Maude Tessier, CBO, as part of the From The Trenches feature of LifeSciVC. When we started to think about changing our company name, we knew it

Today Alkermes announced its acquisition of Rodin Therapeutics, a leader in the field of synaptic dysfunction and neuronal epigenetics. Alkermes extensive experience in CNS diseases made them an ideal partner for Rodin, and this acquisition helps expand Alkermes’ efforts into

Neuroscience has had a tough run of news lately. With Amgen deprioritizing neuro this year, Pfizer doing the same last year, and others like BMS, GSK, and AZ cutting back on CNS a few years earlier, it would seem dark

This blog was written by Deanna Petersen, CBO of AVROBIO (@dmp9818), as part of the From The Trenches feature of LifeSciVC. Building a leading gene therapy pipeline in under two years (and a lot of air miles): how to persevere

This blog was written by Ankit Mahadevia, CEO and founder of Spero Therapeutics, as part of the From The Trenches feature of LifeSciVC.  At Spero we are privileged to be enrolling our pivotal study for SPR994, our oral antibiotic with

This blog was written by Nello Mainolfi, CSO and co-founder of Kymera Therapeutics, as part of the From The Trenches feature of LifeSciVC. Translation of well validated biology into therapeutics remains one of the biggest challenges of modern drug development,

This blog was written by Jeb Keiper, CEO of Nimbus Therapeutics LLC, as part of the From The Trenches feature of LifeSciVC. It is with great excitement that we at Nimbus are ringing in our 10th birthday this month. It’s

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

Most conventional small molecule drugs engage directly with the engine of a protein’s function, aiming to often turning off an enzymatic activity associated with a disease. These drugs bind and compete against the natural substrate of the protein at what

Last week, AvroBio and Magenta Therapeutics priced their IPOs on the same night. Less than three months earlier, Unum Therapeutics priced its IPO. All three biotech companies are emerging leaders in the cell and gene therapy space, broadly defined. They

Four years ago, in December 2013, I highlighted Atlas’ seed-led venture creation model by walking through our Fund IX Seed Class of 2013.  Only a short 1400 days ago, reading it again last week made it seem like an eternity.

This blog was written by Mike Gilman, CEO of Obsidian Therapeutics and Atlas Advisor, as part of the From The Trenches feature of LifeSciVC. Consider the leech – the first living medicine. In its heyday in the 19th century –

Back in the summer, I got the call that no biotech venture investor wants to get. On the morning of August 8th, I received an urgent text of “can you talk now?” quickly followed with a call. I learned then

The term “undruggable” has entered common industry vernacular over the past two decades to describe biologic targets that couldn’t be addressed via narrow conventional pharmacologies involving catalytic-site inhibitors and antibodies. The “druggable genome” historically included intracellular catalytic proteins, (e.g., enzymes

Today Nimbus and Celgene announced a significant partnership focused on autoimmune and inflammatory diseases. The alliance includes two pre-clinical autoimmune-focused programs in various stages of drug discovery. The most advanced program is a highly selective inhibitor of Tyk2, an immunokinase

Today BMS announced the acquisition of IFM Therapeutics, an emerging biotech focused on modulating core innate immune pathways to treat cancer and autoimmune disease. As described in the press release, BMS will acquire the company for $300M upfront, with potentially

This blog was written by Brian Fenton and Paul Burgess, CBO and GC of RaNA Therapeutics, respectively, as part of the From The Trenches feature of LifeSciVC.  On April 18, 1775, Paul Revere was summoned by Dr. Joseph Warren of

This blog was written by Jason Gardner, CEO of Magenta Therapeutics and former EIR at Atlas Venture, as part of the From The Trenches feature of LifeSciVC. We are excited to open the first page of Chapter 2 at Magenta

This guest blog was written by Troy Lister, Head of Chemistry, and Cristina Larkin, Chief Commercial Officer, of Spero Therapeutics, as part of the From The Trenches feature of LifeSciVC. A national security threat equivalent to terrorism?  This is how

This blog was written by Ros Deegan, CBO of Bicycle Therapeutics, as part of the From The Trenches feature of LifeSciVC. When a taxi driver finds out the name of my company, I am inevitably asked, “What does Bicycle Therapeutics

Today Celgene announced its acquisition of Delinia for $300 million upfront, and up to $475 million in milestones, adding to its growing portfolio of novel immunology medicines. Delinia’s rapid trajectory over the past fifteen months has been exciting to watch: this

Today Allergan announced a transformative deal with Lysosomal Therapeutics (LTI), an emerging biotech focused on Parkinson’s Disease through an understanding of human genetics and sphingolipid biology (here). This deal brings a new chapter for LTI as we move our lead

This blog was written by Jason Gardner, founding CEO of Magenta Therapeutics and Atlas Entrepreneur-in-Residence, as part of the From The Trenches feature of LifeSciVC. Imagine the conversation today between a patient and doctor on the decision to have a

This blog is written by Michael Gladstone, Principal at Atlas, as part of the From The Trenches feature of LifeSciVC. Charles de Gaulle once asked, “How can you govern a country which has 246 varieties of cheese?” But that might seem

CRISPR/Cas genome editing has captured the attention of the popular media, scientific community, and the investment world: the promise of going into a cell and precisely making changes in their genetic code to cure them of illness is certainly captivating.

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

We’re excited to announce two new collaborations today from our neuroscience portfolio – Quartet with Merck (here) and Rodin with Biogen (here) – to advance their programs into early clinical development.  These are both young companies that we helped create

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

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

Every week it feels like there’s yet another big event happening in the engineered T-cell therapy space. Recently it’s been biotech-pharma partnering (link). Before that it was the biggest biotech IPO of the year (link). And before that, it was

This blog was written by Kevin Pojasek, Founder and acting CEO of Quartet Medicine, as part of the “From the Trenches” feature of LifeSciVC. A favorite quote from the Jazz Age king that nicely captures life as a biotech entrepreneur.  Breaking