Penn announced a $50 million life sciences venture fund on Friday, alongside the global biotechnology firm BioNTech and the Philadelphia-based venture capital firm Osage University Partners.
The Penn-BioNTech Innovative Therapeutics Seed Fund — or PxB Fund — is designed to provide capital to biomedical companies with roots at Penn. Through seed and Series A investment, the fund supports projects developing novel therapeutics, diagnostics, research tools, and AI-enabled drug discovery.
2009 College graduate Anna Turetsky, who also serves as the general partner of the fund, told The Daily Pennsylvanian that she hopes to invest in “areas of unmet need where Penn innovation has the potential to substantially move the needle for patients.”
OUP Managing Partner Marc Singer similarly described the type of companies the fund hopes to work with.
“Most of the companies we will invest in probably do not exist today, but given what we do at OUP, we’ve been considering Penn investments for a long time,” Singer said in an interview with the DP.
He highlighted the “long, large pipeline of Penn companies” that OUP has worked with over time, mentioning “a flow of opportunities” that would allow the fund to “hit the ground running.”
According to Penn Chief Innovation Officer John Swartley, the fund aims to address the gap in early-stage investment opportunities for life sciences research.
Swartley explained that many companies that previously devoted a large portion of resources to the early stage “have either moved to later stage or have capital limitations.”
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“It’s been a challenging environment, and so we think this is a really good time to bring in some more capital to companies that are having trouble finding money at this stage,” he added.
Singer also characterized the fund as a “very natural extension” of the work OUP was already conducting with Penn.
“Penn was one of our first partners 15 years ago,” he said. “We’ve invested in over 10 spinout companies already.”
He also noted the success of previous Penn spinouts. In the past year, Capstan Therapeutics and Interius BioTherapeutics — both pioneered by Penn researchers — were acquired in major deals.
Swartley also noted “the constellation of available resources” afforded by the fund to the Penn community.
“We can’t anticipate all of the things that will be needed to advance those potential product or business ideas, so we want to create this really robust portfolio of support resources,” he said.
The fund’s support of early-stage life sciences commercialization is intended to stimulate Pennsylvania’s startup and innovation economy by attracting more specialized investors, according to Turetsky.
“We anticipate the establishment and growth of numerous exciting new biotechnology companies which will contribute to the growth of Penn’s innovation ecosystem,” Turetsky said.
