Pivotal bioVenture Partners is a $300 million life sciences venture capital fund established in 2017. They invest in privately held North American and European companies focused on innovative therapeutic products and platforms to address major unmet medical needs. They invest at all stages in a company’s evolution, from company creation through mid and late stage clinical development. Their team brings diverse experience in venture capital, company building, and drug discovery and development to the table in working with entrepreneurs to advance their businesses.

Pivotal bioVenture Partners

Novo Holdings is a holding company specializing in life science investors with a focus on creating long-term value.

Novo Holdings

The firm is a 25-year-old global investment firm focused on healthcare with approximately $5.8 billion in AUM, which we have invested in over 290 public and private companies worldwide. Headquartered in Palo Alto, California, with offices in Asia.  Our team consists of 50 multi-disciplinary professionals, including, physicians, scientists, entrepreneurs, operating executives, and industry experts. The firm operates as a multi-fund investment platform, covering growth equity, private equity including buyout, venture capital, and public equity. Vivo invests broadly in healthcare across all fund strategies, including biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, medical devices, and healthcare services, with a focus on the largest healthcare markets.

Vivo Capital

Nan Fung Life Sciences are a global life sciences investment platform with a long-term capital commitment from the Nan Fung Group. Our team possesses diverse experience with long track records in company formation, venture capital, growth/buyout investments, and drug discovery and development. Through direct investments via Pivotal bioVenture Partners US and Pivotal bioVenture Partners China as well as fund investments, we cover the full spectrum of the life sciences industry including therapeutics, medical devices and diagnostics and across all development stages.

Nan Fung Life Sciences

Sofinnova Ventures has partnered with entrepreneurs to secure initial funding, build successful teams, win key customers, and navigate acquisitions and IPOs. Sofinnova Ventures invests in Life Science and Technology start-ups. Their professionals are seasoned business operators, possessing deep domain and investment expertise. They know how to help entrepreneurs build successful, global businesses.

Sofinnova Investments

Pfizer Venture Investments is a corporate venture capital firm that invests in areas of current or future strategic interest to Pfizer. It aims to remain at the forefront of life science advances. It identifies and invests in emerging companies that are developing transformative medicines and technologies that have the potential to enhance Pfizer’s pipeline and shape the future of its industry.

Pfizer Venture Investments

RA Capital Management is an investment advisor based in Boston specializing in the life-sciences and drug development sectors. The company's team has been investing since 2002 and is comprised of professionals with training in biology, chemistry, and medicine and also has industry and business development experience at the executive and board levels. The company invests in companies with promising technologies and products.

RA Capital Management

Rock Springs Capital is an investment company situated in Baltimore, Maryland. The company specializes in offering advisory services, primarily focused on managing security portfolios and providing portfolio management solutions to businesses and institutional clients. Through its advisory activities, Rock Springs Capital aims to assist clients in optimizing their investment strategies and achieving their financial goals.

Rock Springs Capital

Samsara Biocapital provides investment advisory services to help entrepreneurs turn their own ideas and visions into successful companies. Samsara BioCapital, as a results-driven organization, is always looking for ambitious and visionary partners with the drive and flexibility to take their company to the next level. Samsara BioCapital promotes biotech innovation and collaborates with inspiring companies as they develop important and innovative new therapies.

Samsara BioCapital

Surveyor Capital is a fundamental equities business. Surveyor’s sector-aligned investment teams aim to generate alpha through a deep understanding of each company’s strategy, management teams, drivers of performance, and cyclical and secular industry trends over the medium and long term.

Surveyor Capital

Bolt Biotherapeutics

Bolt Biotherapeutics is a biotechnology company that develops a platform for cancer immunotherapy. Its platform, Boltbody, is a cancer immunotherapy that consists of immune-stimulating antibody conjugates.

<div>Bolt Biotherapeutics is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company developing novel immunotherapies for the treatment of cancer. The company's primary technology platform is the Boltbody Immune-Stimulating Antibody Conjugate (ISAC), which is designed to harness the precision of antibodies with the power of the innate and adaptive immune system to reprogram the tumor microenvironment and generate anti-cancer responses. Boltbody ISACs comprise a tumor-targeting antibody, a non-cleavable linker, and a proprietary immune stimulant. This technology aims to activate myeloid cells, initiating a positive feedback loop by releasing cytokines and chemokines to attract other immune cells and promote a robust immune response.</div>

Bolt Biotherapeutics to present cancer immunotherapy data at ESMO 2023

Bolt Biotherapeutics Enrolls First Patient in Phase 2 Clinical Study Evaluating BDC-1001 in Patients with HER2-Positive Breast Cancer Previously Treated with Enhertu®

StockWatch: Like a Bolt from the Blue, Cancer Drug Developer Nosedives

Bolt Biotherapeutics Presents Updated Clinical Data from Phase 1 Dose-Escalation Trial of BDC-1001 as Monotherapy and in Combination with Nivolumab in HER2-Expressing Tumors at ESMO 2023 Congress

Bolt Biotherapeutics Receives Orphan Drug Designation for BDC-1001 for Treatment of Gastric Cancers

Bolt Biotherapeutics to lay off staff, abandon lead ADC candidate

Therapeutics that target specific areas/tissues to minimize treatment side effects.

Tissue Targeting Therapeutics

Bolt Biotherapeutics presents updated preclinical data for BDC-4182

<div>
 
 Bolt Biotherapeutics is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company developing novel immunotherapies for the treatment of cancer. The company's primary technology platform is the Boltbody Immune-Stimulating Antibody Conjugate (ISAC), which is designed to harness the precision of antibodies with the power of the innate and adaptive immune system to reprogram the tumor microenvironment and generate anti-cancer responses. Boltbody ISACs comprise a tumor-targeting antibody, a non-cleavable linker, and a proprietary immune stimulant. This technology aims to activate myeloid cells, initiating a positive feedback loop by releasing cytokines and chemokines to attract other immune cells and promote a robust immune response.
 
 
 
 
 As of May 2024, Bolt Biotherapeutics has shifted its focus to two primary drug candidates. BDC-3042 is a first-in-class Dectin-2 agonist antibody designed to repolarize tumor-associated macrophages to attack tumor cells, currently in Phase 1 clinical trials. BDC-4182 is a newly-disclosed next-generation Boltbody ISAC candidate targeting the cancer antigen Claudin 18.2, currently in preclinical evaluation.
 
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 Generation Bio is a biotechnology company developing non-viral genetic medicines for rare and prevalent diseases. The company's proprietary platform combines immune-quiet DNA (iqDNA), a novel variant of closed-ended DNA, with a cell-targeted lipid nanoparticle (ctLNP) delivery system and a rapid enzymatic synthesis (RES) manufacturing process. This platform is designed to create gene therapies with drug-like properties, offering durable gene expression, the ability to re-dose for individual patient titration, and the potential to sustain effect over a lifetime. Generation Bio's approach aims to enable multi-year durability from a single dose, deliver large genetic payloads, and allow titration and redosing to adjust or extend expression levels in each patient. The company's pipeline includes programs for liver diseases such as hemophilia A, phenylketonuria (PKU), and Wilson's disease, as well as eye disorders like Stargardt disease and Leber congenital amaurosis type 10. In October 2023, Generation Bio announced the development of iqDNA, which demonstrated cytokine levels and tolerability comparable to chemically modified messenger RNA in mice and non-human primates. Generation Bio's RES manufacturing process has the potential to produce ceDNA at a scale of hundreds of millions of doses.
 
 
 
 
 Key customers and partnerships
 
 
 
 
 In March 2023, Generation Bio entered into a strategic partnership with Moderna to develop non-viral genetic medicines. The collaboration combines Moderna's expertise with Generation Bio's platform technologies to expand their respective non-viral genetic medicines pipelines. Under this partnership, Moderna is using Generation Bio's ctLNP delivery system and iqDNA technology to advance two immune cell programs and two liver programs. The deal included a USD 40 million upfront cash payment and a USD 36 million equity investment from Moderna. Generation Bio will also receive future development, regulatory, and commercial milestone payments, along with royalties on worldwide net sales of immune cell-targeted and liver-targeted products. The partnership aims to develop new lipid nanoparticles and expand in vivo immune cell targeting as a new class of genetic medicines.
 
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Generation Bio

Oncopeptides AB is a biotech company focused on developing therapies for difficult-to-treat hematological diseases, particularly multiple myeloma. The company's lead product, PEPAXTO (melphalan flufenamide, also known as melflufen), received FDA approval in February 2021 for the treatment of adult patients with relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma who have received at least four prior lines of therapy. PEPAXTO is the first anticancer peptide-drug conjugate approved by the FDA for this indication. The drug works by leveraging aminopeptidases, which are overexpressed in multiple myeloma cells, to release cytotoxic agents.
In August 2022, the European Commission granted marketing authorization for Pepaxti (melphalan flufenamide) in combination with dexamethasone for the treatment of adult patients with multiple myeloma who have received at least three prior lines of therapies. Oncopeptides' research is based on two technology platforms: Peptide Drug Conjugates (PDC) and Small Polypeptide based Innate Killer Engagers (SPiKE). The PDC platform allows for efficient drug distribution in the body, enabling a wide therapeutic window and an optimized benefit-risk profile. The SPiKE platform utilizes the immune system to fight cancer by targeting natural killer cells, potentially reducing dose-limiting side effects while maintaining clinical efficacy.
As of 2023, Oncopeptides was conducting one clinical phase 3 study and six clinical phase 2 studies. The company's pipeline includes innovative drug candidates for difficult-to-treat hematological diseases, with the potential to expand into new indications. Oncopeptides' approach is science and data-driven, focusing on bringing innovation to patients with rare hematological diseases.

Oncopeptides

Neurona Therapeutics is a clinical-stage biotherapeutics company focused on developing regenerative cell therapy candidates for the treatment of neurological disorders. The company's lead investigational candidate, NRTX-1001, is being evaluated in an ongoing Phase I/II clinical trial for drug-resistant mesial temporal lobe epilepsy (MTLE). NRTX-1001 is a regenerative neural cell therapy derived from human pluripotent stem cells. It consists of fully-differentiated neural cells called interneurons that secrete the inhibitory neurotransmitter gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA). Delivered as a one-time dose, these human interneurons are intended to integrate on-target and durably silence seizure activity in the epileptic region of the brain. In December 2023, Neurona presented early data from five participants in the ongoing study of NRTX-1001. Two patients who received the therapy more than a year prior experienced at least a 95% reduction in overall seizure frequency. NRTX-1001 is manufactured in Neurona's in-house GMP facility using proprietary methods. Beyond epilepsy, Neurona is also evaluating NRTX-1001 for potential application in Alzheimer's disease. The company's pipeline includes other cell therapy candidates such as investigational myelinating glial cells and gene-edited cells for undisclosed indications.

Neurona Therapeutics

Evox Therapeutics is a biotechnology company specializing in exosome therapeutics. The company utilizes its proprietary DeliverEX technology to engineer exosomes for drug delivery to specific organs, including the brain and central nervous system. Evox's approach aims to overcome limitations of genetic medicines such as gene therapy, gene editing, and RNA therapeutics by enabling safe, non-immunogenic repeated delivery to cells and tissues that are challenging to reach with other drug delivery technologies.
The company's technology focuses on harnessing and engineering the natural delivery capabilities of extracellular vesicles, known as exosomes, to develop a new class of therapeutics for treating severe rare diseases. Evox's intellectual property portfolio includes more than 100 granted patents across key jurisdictions, covering various aspects of exosome-based drug design, development, and manufacturing. In May 2023, Evox was granted a US patent for a method of purifying engineered exosomes using ultrafiltration and size-based separation steps, which is widely used in exosome therapeutics.
In June 2023, Evox acquired Codiak Biosciences' engEx-AAV technology platform, which enables active loading of adeno-associated virus (AAV) into exosomes. This technology has demonstrated improved AAV delivery, increased expression breadth in preclinical models, and shielding of AAVs from neutralizing antibodies. The acquisition aligns with Evox's strategy to enhance exosome-mediated delivery for genetic medicines such as gene therapy and genome editors.

Evox Therapeutics

Aro Biotherapeutics is a clinical-stage biotechnology company based in Philadelphia that specializes in developing tissue-targeted genetic medicines. The company's core technology is a proprietary protein platform called Centyrins, which enables efficient and tissue-specific delivery of siRNA and other genetic drugs. Aro's lead candidate, ABX1100, is being developed for the treatment of Pompe disease, a rare genetic disorder characterized by toxic glycogen accumulation in muscles. ABX1100 comprises a CD71 receptor-binding Centyrin conjugated to a small interfering RNA (siRNA) that targets the Gys1 gene, reducing levels and activity of the Gys1 enzyme in muscle tissues. The therapy has shown promising results in preclinical studies, demonstrating potent and muscle-specific reductions in Gys1 mRNA and protein in the Pompe mouse model. In October 2023, Aro initiated a Phase 1 clinical trial of ABX1100 in Canada, with initial data expected in 2024. The US Food and Drug Administration granted ABX1100 Orphan Drug Designation and Rare Pediatric Disease status. Beyond Pompe disease, Aro is exploring the potential of its Centyrin-siRNA conjugate programs for developing new treatments for autoimmune disorders.

Aro Biotherapeutics

Therapeutics that are designed to target specific cells to reach designated target sites

Therapeutics that are designed to target specific protein or protein receptors to reach designated target sites

Therapeutics that use different targeting approaches, such as bone-targeting or pressure-based, to help therapeutics identify specific target sites

Companies that offer contract research and manufacturing facilities that focus on tissue-targeting therapeutics for life sciences organizations

Bolt Biotherapeutics

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