Forentis Fund invests $7.5M in biomarker marketplace Blueprint Bio

Forentis Fund has committed $7.5 million to Blueprint Bio, a firm focused on identifying, validating and marketing biomarkers. Blueprint is hoping to act as a bridge between researchers who generate omics data and businesses that are interested in sourcing biomarkers.

The potential of this model has attracted Forentis Fund, a $50 million, biotech-focused investment vehicle created by Forentis Partners. Forentis Fund has committed $7.5 million to Blueprint to help it build out its portfolio of intellectual property. This resource will form the backbone of Blueprint’s proposed business model.

“Blueprint was created to become a commercialization engine for precision medicine solutions,” CEO Matthew Nunez said in a statement.

This entails sifting through patient data generated at universities and other research organizations in search of important biomarkers. Blueprint is working with Emerald Logic on these tasks. Biomarkers that emerge from this process are validated with hold-out datasets. The legal team then takes charge of any biomarkers that clear the validation process, resulting in a portfolio of patent-protected assets the company can market.

Nunez also helms BluePen Biomarkers, a company cofounded by Blueprint to discover biomarkers. This model provides Blueprint with an inbuilt source of candidates for its portfolio and BluePen a commercial collaborator capable of validating and selling its discoveries.

“Through BluePen Biomarkers, we will have access to a wide array of new biological discoveries through our unique multi-omics platform,” Nunez said. “Our job at Blueprint is to take these discoveries to market as rapidly and efficiently as possible.”

This model gives BluePrint, a California-based business with outposts at the University of Pennsylvania and the Mayo Clinic, a central role in Forentis Fund’s plans for its biotech portfolio.

“As the commercialization engine of our ecosystem, Blueprint will be the first in line for funding,” Jay Goth, managing partner at Forentis, said.

- read the release