Venture capital firm Frazier Healthcare Partners has grabbed Scott Byrd, Ian Mills, M.D., and Gordon McMurray, Ph.D., as its new entrepreneur-in-residence consultants.
They previously formed the team over at Frazier portfolio company Outpost Medicine, a joint venture with Japanese pharma Takeda with a focus on urologic and gynecologic diseases and disorders.
Now, they have formed Pioneer Therapeutics, a Frazier-founded search company focused on identifying, in-licensing and developing new meds (although more details on the biotech were not shared).
Byrd is currently chair over at Acacia Pharma, having served as CEO at Outpost Medicine. Mills, meanwhile, was chief medical officer at the startup, coming there from Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma Europe, where he was head of clinical development.
Prior to Mitsubishi, he was also with Pfizer for more than 15 years in a variety of clinical and development leadership roles, most recently VP, global clinical head for the innovative pharma business. McMurray, CSO at Outpost, is also a Pfizer alum, formerly working at its global R&D unit.
“We are thrilled to continue to work with Scott, Ian, and Gordon,” said Dan Estes, managing partner on the Frazier Life Sciences team. “We believe their collective experience in pharmaceutical companies, as well as venture-backed companies, will be very helpful in their new roles as EIRs in identifying, creating, and operating innovative new companies.”
This comes four months after Frazier closed a $617 million life sciences fund, setting it up to place another set of bets spanning from company creation through public investments. It said at the time that two-thirds of Frazier Life Sciences X will go into seed and series A rounds.