Canada-based venture capital fund manager AmorChem Group launched a seed-stage life sciences fund on Wednesday with $44.2m of capital from limited partners including pharmaceutical firm Merck & Co.
AmorChem II’s other limited partners include the Québec government and its capital development organisation, Fonds de solidarité FTQ. The fund will focus on investments in life sciences projects from universities and research centres in Québec, Canada.
AmorChem has managed biotechnology-focused VC funds since 1997 and has more than $350m in assets across five funds. It launched AmorChem I in 2011 with approximately $41.3m in capital, $6.9m of which came from Merck.
AmorChem’s successes include the sale of a cystic fibrosis project to pharmaceutical company Vertex Pharmaceuticals and the creation of five spin-off companies including immunotherapy developer Mperia Therapeutics and SemaThera, which is working on diabetes-related macular edema drugs.
Jennifer Chan, vice-president of policy and external affairs at Merck Canada, said: “Since our initial contribution to the AmorChem I fund in 2011 and with the Québec government’s support, we are seeing the successes of Québec-based university researchers in growing the value of their innovations, which is a gain for the entire ecosystem.
“It represents another example of the new R&D model that Merck is pursuing in Québec and in Canada.”