RQx Antibiotic Collaboration With Genentech Marks Third Exit For Avalon Ventures This Year
This article was originally published in The Pink Sheet Daily
Executive Summary
Avalon-backed RQx will team with Genentech to discover and develop antibiotics against a novel, undisclosed target. The deal essentially is an exit for hybrid VC firm Avalon, which already has exit deals this year with BioMarin and Genentech.
You may also be interested in...
Start-Up Quarterly Statistics, Q1 2013
Start-up company fundraising got off to a slow start in 2013: life sciences companies brought in $398.7 million, roughly 59% less than in the final quarter of 2012. Of the total raised, 84% went to biopharmas. The majority of start-up alliances were for discovery- or preclinical-stage products and there were four start-up acquisitions for the quarter – three in biopharma and one in the medical device sector.
Venture Firm Avalon Turns To GSK To Share Biotech Risk
Entering its fourth decade, Avalon fights through “dark days” and taps GlaxoSmithKline to help fund its next crop of early-stage start-ups. In exchange, it must deliver assets, not platforms, to trigger a GSK acquisition of those start-ups, with pre-arranged returns.
Deals Of The Week: Idenix/Janssen, Genentech/Afraxis, Immunomedics/Algeta
With Super Bowl mania rampant, what are the chances of the biopharmaceutical industry’s equivalent: a mega-merger within big pharma? A Wall Street analyst downplays the likelihood of another Pfizer/Wyeth-like pairing, but raises the possibility that industry will see a mid-sized deal intended to mimic the success of the Sanofi/Genzyme merger.