Biotech just takes too long, especially when compared to the overnight success of technology ventures, or so the oft-cited criticism of venture-backed biotech’s perceived longer holding period goes. Despite being a well-accepted belief  held by most venture professionals, LP’s, and

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,

Personalized medicine and diagnostics are undoubtedly critical to the delivery of better healthcare in the future: getting the right drug to the right patient at the right time.  In theory, these therapy-guiding diagnostics should reduce the cost of healthcare while

Not every deal is a winner, and unfortunately On-Q-ity wasn’t.  After a few years of hammering away at its diagnostic business case, the board decided to wind the company down back in November and we are just completing the sale

Pharmaceutical R&D is a very low velocity, high cost process, which makes it hard for any individual to gather the large body of experience required to inform better decision-making.  This is why pharma’s embedded institutional knowledge should be the source

Euphoria in the markets seems like a common theme these days.  In fact, this week the NASDAQ Biotech Index (NBI) hit its all time high, even higher than in the 2000 genomics bubble.  It’s up 49% since Jan 2012.  Add

Immunokinase-directed therapeutics have been one of the highest returning drug classes for biotech investors in recent years.  Drugs that inhibit the JAK family, BTK, Syk, and PI3Kd have all generated impressive clinical validation in B- and T-cell diseases, and created

Several preclinical-stage biotechs have opted for the early Pharma structured buyout as their exit path in recent weeks: Resolve Therapeutics with Takeda, Zacharon with Biomarin, RQx Pharma with Genentech, and Lotus Tissue Repair with Shire. Here are the quick takes

Venture capital is often called an apprenticeship business in large part because experience matters and takes time to accumulate.  But successful firms are able to translate and transfer experiential wisdom through institutional memory, which involves codifying what works and what

The numbers are in on the 2012 Pharma/Biotech M&A performance, at least according to our friends at HBM Partners.  They’ve released another well-annotated deal report and database. The quick summary from a venture-backed biotech perspective: it was a good year

As 2013 begins, and the JPM conference is behind us, it’s a great time to reflect on the state of the biotech industry and the sentiments around early stage investing in particular.  While pessimism abounds in many corners about the

Most of the news flow around the JPM Healthcare conferences centers around the main event: public companies presenting their earnings forecasts, R&D updates, new partnering deals, and the like.  There’s also a small private company track at JPM, and there are