Curie.Bio, a biotech accelerator and investor, said Wednesday it raised $380 million to support its portfolio companies beyond the seed stage, helping advance their drugs into the clinic with Series A rounds. The Cambridge, MA-based firm has 20 therapeutics startups in its portfolio thus far, and one has so far publicly disclosed a Series A. That company, Forward Therapeutics, unveiled a $50 million Series A last November with three oral small molecules in just 18 months. Others are coming up behind it: Astoria Biologica, Decrypt Biomedicine and Differentiated Therapeutics. The firm said it invests in single-asset and platform biotechs, but each drug "must have blockbuster potential," meaning at least $1 billion in peak sales. Christoph Lengaeur, Curie chief scientific officer and co-founder, told me last November the firm sifts through about 1,000 applications a year. "There are some that are good, but you're not really excited about it or it's not for us, or it needs more work, and then there's a lot of shit out there, too, but that's OK. At least, that's how we perceive it. That doesn't mean that's the way it is. We can be wrong." #biotech #vc #venturecapital #accelerator #drugdevelopment #biotechstartups
David Klein
4mo
Congrats Zach!
Biotech/Biopharma Executive
4moSeems there may be a better way to phrase or speak about things you decide to pass on.