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Biotech & Medical Company Funding: Recent Activity (March, 2007)

April 12, 2007 on 9:15 am | In Company Analysis, Investor Analysis, Board Member Analysis, Month in Review |

Building upon the previous theme of activity reports, I turned to SV Health-Tech companies (i.e., Biotech & Medical sectors) that received funding in March, 2007.  I mapped these companies together and then filtered for companies that only received funding in the past year.  The goal here is to find out which investors and outside board members were most recently active in the health-tech space and to illustrate their capital relations. 

First I was interested in the most recently active investors - for this I only included investors with at least 3 investments (MinLink =3) in the Biotech and Medicine sectors over the past year.  I then dropped pendants to only show the connections between these investors.  

1st Round SV Health-Tech Companies Recent Activity Investment Map (Pendants dropped, MinLink=3).  Large blue boxes indicate Health-Tech companies that were funded in March, 2007.  Small blue boxes indicate Health-Tech companies that were funded from 3/06-2/07.  Source: LinkSV.com 

Network Commentary:

17 private active Health-Tech companies were identified as funded in March, 2007 from the search: Aerovance, ChemoCentryx, Coapt Systems, Diamics, DiscoveRx, Epiphany Biosciences, Intarcia Thera, Intellidot, MAP Pharma, NeuroPure, Optovue, PneumRx, PulmonX, TransOral Pharma, VasoNova, Xradia, and Zonare Medical Systems

• On average, these companies were on Round 3.1, raised $20.5M in latest round funding, and had 6.89 investors

7 of these companies were removed from the map as isolates: Diamics, Epiphany Biosciences, Intellidot, NeuroPure, Optovue, VasoNova, Xradia

• These companies had no investment relations in Health-Tech over the past year
• On average, these companies were on Round 2.0, raised $10.0M in latest round funding, and had 3.14 investors

19 Investors had at least 3 Health-Tech investments over the past year. 

• The most active investors were Alta Partners (9), Morgenthaler Ventures (6), and Asset Management Company (5)
• Alta Partners invested in 6 Health-Tech start-ups in March, 2007 (Aerovance, Coapt Systems, PneumRx, ChemoCentrix, DiscoveRx, and Intarcia Thera) 

Alta Partners forms a central hub by connecting investor clusters in the network

OrbiMed Advisors and NEA are also central hubs on the map

St. Paul VP and Morgenthaler Ventures had the most common company ties on the map (3)

Kaiser Permanente was the only Corporate VC on the map

Next I examined recent board interlocks of Health-tech companies.  For this, I clicked on the People Map for the aforementioned search criteria.  The goal of this map is to indicate recent board member activity in the SV Medicine & Biotech Sectors. 

 

SV Health-Tech Companies Recent Activity People Map (Pendants dropped).  Large blue boxes indicate Health-Tech companies that were funded in March, 2007.  Small blue boxes indicate Health-Tech companies that were funded from 3/06-2/07.  Source: LinkSV.com 

Network Commentary:

10 People had at least 2 recently-funded Health-Tech company board members: Bryan Roberts (Pathwork Diagnostics & Intarcia Pharma), Richard Bastiani (Pathwork & DiscoveRx), John Freund (DiscoveRx & MAP Pharma), Nicholas Galakatos (Affymax & Aerovance), John Walker (Affymax, Aerovance, & Kai Pharma), Chris Ehrlich (Kai Pharma & TransOral Pharma), Kathy LaPorte (TransOral Pharma & Affymax), Guy Nohra (PneumRx & Coapt Systems), Lowell Sears (Coapt Systems & InteKrin Thera), & Samuel Wertheimer (InteKrin Thera & ChemoCentryx)  

8 of the above companies were funded in the past month: (Intarcia, DiscoverRx, MAP Pharma, Aerovance, TransOral Pharma, PneumRx, Coapt Systems, ChemoCentryx)

3 board interlock clusters exist on the map: (1) Roberts-Basitani-Freund; (2) Nohra-Sears-Wertheimer; and (3) Ehrlich-Walker-Galakatos-LaPorte-Ehrlich (cycle or circuit) 

John Walker (Novacea Interim CEO) is the only person that is on 3 recently-funded company boards on the map

John Freund (Skyline Ventures) and Guy Nohra (Alta Partners) are both on two boards funded in March, 2007

Guy Nohra (Alta, #73) and Kathy LaPorte (NewLeaf VP, #97) were on the 2007 Forbes Midas List 

In summary, the purpose of this post was to identify the companies, investors, and board members in recently funded Biotech and Medical sector fundings.  While the majority of these funding were for later round companies, the recent key players were evident from the network analyses: People: Guy Nohra (Alta), Kathy LaPorte (New Leaf), John Walker (Novacea); VCs: Alta, NEA, and OrbiMed as central hubs; St. Paul & Morgenthaler as co-investors.  Of course, there are several other ways to examine recent activity such as: (1) only looking at the Biotech Sector or Medical sector; (2) Company filters for rounds of capital, Recent round $, total funding $, or start year; (3) Changing the dates of what defines recent activity (to, say, the past 6 months only); and (4) Using keywords to further identify specific company products.  Registered LinkSViewer users are encouraged to tinker with the maps using the above criteria.