MPM Capital secures $400M treasure chest for early biotechs

Life science VC MPM Capital is looking to boost funding for a select series of early-stage biotechs with a new $400 million fund.

This cash injection comes from its seventh venture fund, known as BioVentures 2018 (aka BV2018), and sits alongside its two cancer-only funds, which all together brings its VC cash budget to a cool $1 billion.

With BV2018, MPM says it will continue to “create and invest in innovative companies developing breakthrough therapies to treat severe unmet medical needs.”

Specifically, it will focus on earlier science coming out of biotechs working in immunology and neuroscience, as well as emerging modalities of cell, gene and nucleic acid therapies.

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“We’re grateful for our investors’ support of BV2018, which will allow us to continue to pursue our proven company-building strategy with the goal of improving healthcare outcomes while creating value for our investors,” said Ansbert Gadicke, M.D., Ph.D., co-founder and managing director of MPM.

“The opportunity to drive innovation in drug development is more attainable than ever before. We believe this is particularly true in oncology where MPM has 29 oncology portfolio investments and approximately $1 billion of capital dedicated to developing novel cancer therapies.”

The alumni of MPM’s approach include freshly IPO’d Harpoon Therapeutics and TCR2 Therapeutics, as well as Mitobridge and Potenza Therapeutics, both of which were recently bought out by Astellas.