MPM Capital raised $400m to continue funding early-stage biotech innovation

Good news for biotech innovation! Healthcare investment firm MPM Capital, renowned for investing in biotechnology, healthcare, and life sciences companies, has closed its seventh venture fund, BioVentures 2018, after raising $400m to fund early-stage biotech innovation.

MPM is powering novel medical breakthroughs

MPM Capital invests in breakthrough therapeutics, with a focus on oncology. With its experienced and dedicated team of investment professionals, executive partners, entrepreneurs and scientific advisory board members, MPM is powering novel medical breakthroughs that transform patients’ lives.

Nowadays, MPM Capital invests across three vehicles. The one mentioned above, BioVentures 2018 (BV2018), is a venture capital fund. The second is an oncology-only crossover fund (both private and public equities), and the third is an oncology-focused investment initiative, in collaboration with Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.

MPM Capital’s current investments out of BV2018 and its two oncology-only funds total more than $1bn in capital, making any news about the company immensely important for both researchers and patients everywhere.

Making healthcare innovation its primary business interest

MPM Capital is a private equity and venture capital firm that makes its venture investments through its MPM BioVentures fund. It also invests in the public markets through MPM BioEquities hedge fund.

MPM Capital was founded in 1996 and is based in Boston, Massachusetts with additional offices in Brisbane (California); and Kansas City (Kansas).

MPM Capital specializes in seed, startup, early ventures, emerging growth, middle market, mature, mid venture, late venture, buyout, recapitalization, PIPES, and growth equity investments.

The firm puts its money into the biotechnology, healthcare, and life sciences sectors. It invests in the seed stage through the early clinical development stage of a company and invests in late stage in biopharmaceutical and diagnostics companies with clinical proof-of-concept data. Medical technology, oncology, specialty pharma, and medical devices are the most preferred investment options for MPM Capital. The firm focuses its investments on the United States, Europe, and Asia, especially India, but it is interested in investing globally, between $5 million and $50 million. The firm aims to be a lead investor and gets involved with running the companies it invests in, by taking on interim operating positions.

MPM is constantly looking for new ways to invest in order to determine breakthroughs and discovering new cures, and employing innovative strategies with impact components:

• A crossover strategy (both public and private equities), through which a portion of profits and royalties goes to cancer care and research. The first gift of $1.2 million was made in 2018 to the joint AACR-MPM Transformative Cancer Research Grants Program, through the MPM Capital partnership with the American Association of Cancer Research. The UBS Optimus Foundation received an equal amount to support emerging market access to cancer care.
• The second strategy is the unique partnership it has with Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (DFCI) to advance cancer research. Through this collaboration, MPM has early insight into DFCI projects with commercial potential, while DFCI has access to potential new philanthropic resources.

What does the company intend to do with the newly acquired funds?

The new funds will provide MPM Capital the possibility to create and invest in new companies developing innovative novel drugs and treatments to treat severe unmet medical needs. The areas MPM Capital intends to invest in are oncology, immunology, and neuroscience along with emerging modalities of the cell, gene, and nucleic acid therapies, the focus of the company is to find and fund disruptive scientific developments concerning these domains.

“We’re grateful for our investors’ support of BV2018, which will allow us to continue to pursue our proven company-building strategy with the goal of improving healthcare outcomes while creating value for our investors,” said Ansbert Gadicke, M.D., co-founder and Managing Director of MPM. “The opportunity to drive innovation in drug development is more attainable than ever before. We believe this is particularly true in oncology where MPM has 29 oncology portfolio investments and approximately $1 billion of capital dedicated to developing novel cancer therapies.”

A strong team powers MPM Capital

Founded in 1997, MPM has raised $3.9B in capital. 48 FDA approved drugs and more than 100 IPOs and acquisitions are claimed to be part of the company’s assets. Biomedical discovery and taking advantage of favorable industry trends is what MPM Capital intends to do via BV2018.

Fifteen executive partners work in close collaboration at the heart of MPM Capital, alongside its investment team, to encourage scientific creativity, entrepreneurship, and financial and business useful insights. Decades of experience in drug discovery, clinical development, and putting drugs on the market recommend the executive partners, who are mostly senior biopharma leaders.

Harpoon Therapeutics, TCR2 Therapeutics, Mitobridge, and Potenza Therapeutics are some of the companies founded and led by MPM executive partners.

“Over two decades of investing, MPM has developed long-standing and strategic partnerships with academia, biotech, and large pharma,” said Luke Evnin, Ph.D., co-founder and Managing Director of MPM. “Vital to our objective of delivering new treatments to improve the lives of patients, these relationships support our ongoing discovery of next-generation translational science and provide financing and acquisition opportunities across our portfolio.”