The high-profile biotech analyst and investor Steven Burrill has rounded up more than $300 million for a new life sciences fund, which reportedly includes a big cache of cash from a Russian bionano investment group. The investment group announced this morning that Burrill Capital Fund IV is open for business and plans to keep gathering cash with a goal of bumping its total to $500 million by next summer.
The San Francisco-based fund--which currently has $313 million--has a broad scope. Burrill plans to use the cash to invest in early- to late-stage investments in therapeutics, diagnostics, medical devices, healthcare delivery, wellness and digital health.
"We are pleased to have surpassed our initial goal of $300 million in capital commitments for the first close," says Burrill, CEO of Burrill & Company. "We look forward to achieving our final goal of $500 million in capital commitments by June 2012."
Burrill told MedCityNews back in August that $200 million of his new fund's cash was coming from RusNano, a bionano investment group which has been making some hefty investments in U.S. biotech companies. He also told the news group that he'd have $350 million in short order, maintaining a tradition of bold pronouncements that sometimes fall short of the mark. More than two years ago he promised to put together a $1 billion fund to invest in Elk Run, an ambitious biotech development in Minnesota which has yet to materialize.
- here's the press release