Curie Co., Inc.

It’s day 3 of the JP Morgan Healthcare Conference, and it’s started to get a little less crowded in San Francisco. That said, many small biotechs, pharma companies and manufacturers are still set to present at the Westin on Wednesday. In particular, we’re keeping an eye on what the execs at the WuXi companies and Madrigal Pharmaceuticals have to say. Stay tuned for more coverage and insights from the industry’s top execs over the day. Biotech’s new currency? (4:00 am PT): Turns out it’s “speed and stealth,” according to Mirador Therapeutics CEO Mark McKenna . His I&I drug development company — loaded with $400 million and six mysterious internal programs, including one that just entered the clinic — is going to remain as stealthy as possible, he said, and the company might not disclose much over the coming years. An S-1 could be the first time the industry gets a close look at the company, he hinted. “Once you announce a program or file a patent,” others latch on quickly, especially in China, he said Tuesday. “I view what’s going on in China right now as an existential threat to biotech and to biopharma in general,” McKenna told me. — Kyle LaHucik Not everyone needs — or deserves — a megaround (4:00 am PT): Curie.Bio leader Alexis Borisy thinks only about a dozen biotechs should get a nine-figure funding round per year. That thinking is backed up by how his firm does business. Curie.Bio has steadily increased the number of seed investments it’s made since launching a few years ago, going from four in 2022 to 13 in 2024. Curie will likely seed 15 to 20 companies this year, and it’ll ramp up Series A investing with a new hire, and Borisy’s old friend, Ben Auspitz . — Kyle LaHucik Click on the image to see the full-sized version We wear pink in Union Square: The Biotech Sisterhood , a group that aims to elevate women executives in drug development, and Breaking 7% , which connects women in business decision-making roles, on Tuesday got together for a pink photo in Union Square, with both men and women showing up in pink clothes. The JPM conference historically has had a significantly higher percentage of male attendees. — Kyle LaHucik & Jaimy Lee Neuron23 has a lot in the works (4:00 am PT): The biotech is creating a precision medicine for Parkinson’s disease that focuses on LRRK2. CEO Nancy Stagliano told Endpoints on Tuesday that a Phase 2 trial will start in the coming months. Her biotech is also raising a Series D, which she said will likely be above $100 million, as it gets that proof-of-concept trial started and enters Phase 1 with a brain-penetrant TYK2 program. Neuron23 last raised money in 2021, with its Series C. The 50-employee biotech is also at JPM to potentially find a partner in diabetes and IBD. — Kyle LaHucik

A small venture capital firm that backs up-and-coming scientists plans to raise a $35 million second fund, three years after coming onto the scene. SciFounders, based in the San Francisco Bay Area, is seeking its second fund, according to an SEC document filed Thursday. The fund declined to comment on the filing and the proposed raise, which has yet to mark its first sale. SciFounders emerged in January 2021 with $6 million, according to TechCrunch , to help scientist founders lead their own startups. The fund is led by several entrepreneurs who have co-founded their own companies. This includes Mammoth Biosciences chief scientific officer Lucas Harrington and Conception CEO Matt Krisiloff. Former Genentech researcher Alexander Schubert is also a leader of SciFounders. “We think it would be great longer-term for scientists to say, ‘We’re first-class citizens in charge of everything,’ as is often the case in the software world, where you have the Collison brothers in charge of Stripe, or the Airbnb founders in charge of their company,” Krisiloff told TechCrunch in 2021. “We want to make sure that happens more widely for scientist founders, as well.” On its website, the fund says it typically backs early-stage companies and takes about a 10% stake for pre-seed and seed-stage investments. Its portfolio includes Deliver Biosciences, which is working on delivery particles for cell and gene therapies; Symphony Biosciences , a Los Angeles upstart creating sponge-like devices for treating solid tumors; and Fletcher Biosciences, a Cambridge, MA-based startup developing protein therapies for T cells. Other biotech VC firms like Curie.Bio, which operates under the motto “ Free the Founders, ” have also placed an emphasis on supporting scientific founders in recent years. Curie has said it invests about $5 million to $7 million in seed rounds, and its drug discovery counterpart gets about a 7% stake in exchange for its services.

Curie.Bio will aim its funds aimed at nurturing early-stage companies advancing towards clinical trials. Credit: FreshVector via Shutterstock. Biotech startup incubator Curie.Bio has secured $380m in funding for its latest investment pool aimed at nurturing early-stage companies advancing towards clinical trials. The fundraising round – which boosts Curie.Bio’s total funds raised to nearly $1bn – specifically targets Series A investments in companies within its accelerator programme, focusing on advancing companies towards clinical proof-of-concept studies. The Massachusetts-based biotech investor launched with $520m in its pocket in February 2023, with investments from GV, ARCH Venture Partners, and Leaps by Bayer. The investor operates through two parts: one provides seed-stage funding to startups, while the other offers essential services to help advance scientific projects. Amid macroeconomic pressures, private biotech venture financing saw a significant downturn in 2022 and 2023. During 2023, funding decreased by 43.2% compared to 2022 and by 52.3% compared to 2021, as investors became more cautious and focused on existing portfolios. Curie.Bio was started by Alexis Borisy, Zach Weinberg, and Christoph Lengauer. When it launched last year, the founders highlighted that securing initial funding is scarce in the biotech startup landscape, compared to the tech industry. This requires biotech founders to retain control with minimal support or partner with investors for expertise but give up ownership. According to the fund, Curie.Bio is designed to support founder-led biotechs with extensive guidance beyond typical accelerators. See Also: US Justice Dept cracks down on healthcare fraud schemes linked to $2.75bn loss CHMP recommends authorisation for Pfizer-BioNTech’s Covid-19 vaccine Curie.Bio initially supported Forward Therapeutics, Astoria Biologica, Decrypt Biomedicine and Differentiated Therapeutics; however, it now has 20 early-stage therapeutics companies under its belt. Forward Therapeutics, Curie.Bio’s first portfolio company, raised $50m in a Series A funding round in November 2023, emerging with drug candidates that target chronic immunological and inflammatory disorders. The Florida-based biopharma progressed from startup to being ready for the clinic within 18 months. However, there is renewed optimism according to GlobalData’s recent survey, The State of the Biopharmaceutical Industry 2024 . It revealed that 44% of healthcare industry professionals surveyed globally are optimistic or very optimistic about the recovery of biotech funding in the next 12 months. GlobalData is the parent company of Pharmaceutical Technology.