The FINANCIAL — Leverkusen – Bayer HealthCare will invest up to USD 25 million as a strategic investor in Versant Ventures’ newly formed “Versant Venture Capital V” fund to support the development of new therapies in areas of high unmet medical need. Bayer, along with other limited partners of the fund, will be a member of its advisory board, contributing its longstanding expertise in drug discovery and development. Versant’s fund management team maintains full decision making rights as to investments in portfolio companies, according to Bayer AG.
“Versant Ventures has an excellent track record promoting entrepreneurship in life sciences and healthcare, driven by a team of experts with a global reach,” said Prof. Dr. Andreas Busch, Member of the Bayer HealthCare Executive Committee and Head of Global Drug Discovery. “Bayer’s mission is science for a better life. Our commitment parallels Versant’s vision to advance early medical innovation and patient care. We are looking forward to supporting promising early stage companies that are addressing disease areas of high unmet medical need,” he added.
“We are excited about Bayer’s support for our latest fund and look forward to sharing our expertise in drug discovery and development,” said Brad Bolzon, Managing Director at Versant Ventures. “We share similar goals of stimulating and promoting innovation in healthcare to eventually affect patient outcome,” he added.
Bayer and Versant Ventures have already joined forces in ophthalmology research. In November 2013, Bayer HealthCare announced an exclusive collaboration with Inception Sciences – a drug discovery incubator exclusively backed by Versant Ventures – to conduct early research in the area of retinal eye diseases. For this purpose, Versant Ventures established “Inception 4” – a company with the aim to develop innovative treatment options for patients suffering from eye diseases, such as wet age-related macular degeneration and geographic atrophy. Bayer holds an exclusive option to acquire “Inception 4” under certain undisclosed conditions, according to Bayer AG.
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