Venture Capital News
Third Quarter Shows 30% Increase in Health Care Venture Capital Raised, Healthcare Corporate Finance News Reveals
Total venture capital funding raised by health care companies during third quarter 2006 increased by close to 30%, compared with the year-ago quarter. In the three months ended September 30, 2006, a total of 110 health care venture capital investments with disclosed prices were confirmed, amounting to nearly $2.2 billion in funding, according to Healthcare Corporate Finance News. Compared with the second quarter 2006, however, dollar volume increased only slightly. Esprit Pharmaceuticals announced the largest deal, a $91 million Series B financing.
Several deals were announced concurrently with a licensing agreement, merger, acquisition, spin-out or product launch. Corporations or corporate venture capital affiliates that contributed to venture financings during the third quarter include Roche Venture Fund, Teva Pharmaceuticals, Novo Nordisk, MedImmune Ventures, Lilly Ventures and Novartis Bioventures. In addition, Safeguard Scientific, Dow Chemical Company, Medtronic and Johnson & Johnson Development Corporation invested.
Medical device companies accounted for the most deals (32%) during the three months ended September 30, 2006, but pharmaceutical companies
garnered the greatest amount of funding (31%) in one sector. Biopharmaceutical deals accounted for 26% of total dollars invested and 20% of the total number of deals announced. Biotechnology and Pharmaceuticals were each responsible for 17% of the number deals announced, but the biotechnology deals only account for 13% of the total funding for the quarter. Many of these companies are developing protein-based therapeutics to address major unmet medical needs, including cancer, inflammation and metabolic and autoimmune disorders, but a few are targeting specialized indications.
The most active venture capital firms for the third quarter ended September 30, 2006 were led HBM Partners and Sofinnova Partners, which each contributed to seven venture financings, followed by Bio*One Capital and InterWest Partners, which each invested in six deals. New Enterprise Associates, BA Venture Partners and Domain Associates also participated in some of the largest rounds. Listed below are the top venture capital investors in health care for the quarter, ranked by participation in number of deals.
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Alta Partners Promotes Alison de Bord to Director
Alta Partners, a life sciences venture capital firm based in San Francisco, announced that Alison de Bord has been promoted to Director. Alison joins Alta's other six Directors responsible for investing Alta Partners VIII. She currently represents Alta as a Director on the boards of Aegerion Pharmaceuticals, Insulet and SurgRx, and was directly involved in Alta's investments in Esperion Therapeutics and Kerberos Proximal Solutions.
Alison was a Principal in Alta BioPharma III most recently, and joined Alta Partners as an Associate in 2001. Prior to Alta, Alison was a Senior Associate in Robertson Stephens' Life Sciences Investment Banking Group with primary responsibilities for the execution of corporate finance transactions including IPOs, follow-on equity and convertible preferred offerings. Previously, she was an Associate in Robertson Stephens' equity research group where she focused on growth medical technology companies. She began her career in the business development group at Geron, a biotechnology company. Alison earned a Master of Business Administration from Columbia Business School and a Bachelor of Arts in History from Colgate University.
In addition, Adam Tomasi, Ph.D. has joined the firm as a Kauffman fellow. Prior to joining Alta, Adam was a student in the Harvard-MIT Biomedical Enterprise Program and held lead scientific positions in medicinal chemistry at Cytokinetics and Gilead Sciences.
Adam completed his Ph.D. at UC Irvine where he was a Fellow of the American Chemical Society and the UC Regents. He continued his education with a postdoctoral role at The Scripps Research Institute/The Genomics Institute of the Novartis Foundation. Adam holds a B.S. in Chemistry from UC Berkeley, a Ph.D. in Chemistry from UC Irvine, and an MBA from MIT Sloan.
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Athlone Global Security Names Two Seasoned Venture Capitalists to Its Board of Directors and Investment Committee
Athlone Global Security, Inc., a private equity group that invests in Israeli homeland security companies and helps them establish new markets for their products in the U.S. and Europe, announced today that two experienced venture capitalists and private equity investors, University of Maryland professor Charles O. Heller and Israeli venture capitalist Yaron Rosenboim have agreed to join its board of directors and investment committee. Athlone Global is based in New York and at the Chesapeake Innovation Center in Annapolis.
As members of the investment committee, along with President and CEO Gordon Hawke of AGS, Heller and Rosenboim will be responsible for selecting new investments. As members of the company's board, they will help manage AGS and its investment companies.
A successful entrepreneur, Charles O. Heller is president of an early-stage investment and management consulting firm, Annapolis Capital Group, and a professor at the University of Maryland Smith School of Business as well as a teacher of entrepreneurship at the Clark School of Engineering at the University of Maryland. A founder and CEO of two successful computer companies, he was managing partner of two venture capital funds and has a solid track record in successful VC fund management.
Based in Tel-Aviv, Israel, Yaron Rosenboim is a general partner of Concord Ventures, which invests in technology companies in Israel and the United States. He has analyzed and supervised investments in companies in Israel for more than ten years.
At the University of Maryland, Heller is Professor of Practice-Entrepreneurship at the Smith School of Business. He has been associated with the University since 1990. From 2000 to 2003, he was general partner of Gabriel Venture Partners, an early-stage, bi-coastal, venture capital fund with $260 million under management.
Through 1999, he was Director of the Dingman Center for Entrepreneurship at the Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland, where he built one of the nation's top-ranked entrepreneurship centers. He joined the Dingman Center in 1990, following 18 years managing two computer industry companies. Dr. Heller received BS and MS degrees from Oklahoma State University and a Ph.D. from The Catholic University of America -- all in engineering. Early in his career, he was an engineer at Douglas Aircraft Company and Bell Telephone Laboratories. He lectured at UCLA and later became the youngest tenured faculty member at the U.S. Naval Academy (aerospace engineering).
In 1992, Ernst & Young/INC. magazine/Merrill Lynch named him Maryland. "Entrepreneur of the Year." In 1998, digitalsouth magazine named him one of "The 50 Most Influential People in Southern Technology."
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"The Outlook for Venture Investing" (Nov. 17)
The Florida Venture Forum in collaboration with the Beacon Council present "The Outlook for Venture Investing" on Friday, November 17, 2006 at the Bankers Club, One Biscayne Tower, in Miami, FL. Special Guest Speaker is Mark Heesen, President of the National Venture Capital Association. Registration begins at 11:30 a.m. followed by lunch and the presentation. The cost of the meeting is $50.00 in advance and $60.00 at the door. Space is limited.
Emerging growth companies, investors and professionals wanting to learn more about equity capital and the economic outlook for the balance of the year are invited to attend this special forum to learn, first hand, what this national expert has to say. Attendees will get an overview of venture investing throughout the U.S., particularly in Florida.
For additional information or to register for the event, please visit The Florida Venture Forum website or call 813-335-8116.
The Florida Venture Forum is Florida's oldest, largest and most prestigious statewide support group for venture capitalists and entrepreneurs, helping emerging growth companies come together with sources of capital across the state.
