Illumina Ventures, an independent, early-stage venture capital firm, announced this week the close of its $230 million fund.

October 18, 2017 Comments (0) Views: 1876 Biotech, Biotech Briefing, Blog

Biotech Briefing: Illumina Ventures Closes $230 Million Fund to Invest in Genomics Startups

Plus: UC San Diego’s Stefan Savage has been awarded a “genius grant” from the MacArthur Foundation

By Jessica Yingling, Ph.D.

Reports + Research

Illumina Ventures Closes $230 Million Fund to Invest in Genomics Startups

Launched last year with $100 million from Illumina, Illumina Ventures, an independent, early-stage venture capital firm, announced this week the close of its $230 million fund. Illumina Ventures has already invested in six companies, one of which is San Diego’s Biota Technology, which uses DNA sequencing to maximize reservoir (oil and gas) economics. The fund has a stated mission to support breakthroughs in life science research, clinical diagnostics, novel therapeutic platforms, and other technologies impacting human health.

The First Gene Therapy Approved by FDA

Last week, Philadelphia’s Spark Therapeutics received a historic FDA approval for the company’s gene therapy to treat a form of childhood blindness. In a clinical trial of 30 patients, more than 90 percent of those treated had vision improvement. Now we have the questions of how much will it cost and who will pay for the treatment.

San Diego’s Ionis Delivers Positive Phase 3 Data in Race to Develop New RNA Drug

In an east versus west biotech race, Ionis and Alnylam are both developing an antisense RNA therapy for a hereditary TTR amyloidosis (hATTR) with polyneuropathy, a progressive neurodegenerative disease. This weekend, Ionis presented positive phase 3 data and indicated that the drug, inotersen, could change the progression of the disease.

Impact Biomedicines Raises $22 Million for Fedratinib

Taking back fedratinib from Sanofi, Impact Biomedicines raised $22 million from co-founders and Medicxi, with Sanofi retaining a minority stake. The drug is being developed to treat the bone marrow cancers polycythemia vera and myleofibrosis.

A Look at JLabs’ Impact on San Diego Innovation

JLabs is celebrating five years in San Diego. The incubator was started here as an experiment in innovation for Johnson & Johnson and leases lab space and equipment under a “no strings attached” agreement. Now, five years later, JLabs is opening its eighth incubator in 2018 at the New York Genome Center. Currently, 44 life sciences startups are housed in San Diego’s JLabs facility. Read more here.

Awards + Honors

UC San Diego Professor Awarded “Genius Grant” from MacArthur Foundation

Stefan Savage, a renowned cybersecurity expert and professor of computer science at UC San Diego, received a five-year, “no-strings attached” fellowship of $625,000 from the John D. and Catherine C. MacArthur Foundation. The award recognizes three major research directions that have driven Savage’s work in the past two decades: understanding how cars are vulnerable to hacking; investigating the world of cybercrime and its economics; and creating new strategies to defend against malware.

Read + Listen

POW! Podcast of the Week

Add this Nature Biotechnology podcast to your list. First Rounders has conversations with biotech founders, financers, and developers.

BOW! Book of the Week

Harvard, UCSF, and Genentech all race to produce the world’s first genetically engineered drug—insulin. One scientist will win the Nobel Prize, others will become biotech’s first millionaires, and the stage will be set for the Human Genome Project. Read more in Invisible Frontiers: The Race to Synthesize a Human Gene.