Seven years ago, Reinhard Ambros became global head of Novartis Venture Funds for the Switzerland-based pharmaceutical company, when it had $175m under management. Today, it has more than $800m in funds under management.
Ambros said it had been another busy year for the corporate venturing unit. “In 2013 we made five new investments up to now and have led three of the largest clinical follow-on investments (Tokai $30m, Akebia $40m, Opsona €33m) plus four large IND-stage follow-on financings ( Aileron $30m, Merus €33m, Covagen CHF32m, Thesan $46m) so a lot has happened. Fortunately we also had a really nice exit with the GSK acquisition of Okairos,” he said.
Ambros said in an interview for last year’s Powerlist™: “Novartis Ventures was a small unit, making small investments and had never led a round. It was more a follower than a leader. I said: ‘I will build it into the largest corporate venture biotech group in the world.’ People said: ‘That is a good ambition.’ But they were not really convinced it could be done.
“Now we are the largest biotech corporate venture unit in the world, making the highest number of new deals and are considered the most influential group by your publication.”
Novartis Venture Funds has more than 60 portfolio companies and an average ownership stake in individual portfolio companies of 20% to 25%. Ambros is on the board of Cylene Pharmaceuticals, Forma Therapeutics, Genedata, Tokai and Symetis and also a director of the Novartis Option Fund, an innovative $200m programme to support early-stage healthcare companies.
Ambros was trained as a banker and scientist with a PhD in medicinal chemistry and pharmacology in German and a post-doctorate in the US. He said: “I found a very interesting job at Roche in Basel [Switzerland] where I was involved in a number of their development projects.
At that time project management was one of the hottest jobs around. I was one of the few lucky people to see programmes move to approval and discussed with the FDA [the US Food and Drug Administration] multiple times in different therapeutic areas.”
He added: “I then moved to Novartis, to manage a key oncology project but got quickly interested in business development and licensing. From there I went to the mergers and acquisition group for a period working on acquisitions, before I was offered the position of head of Novartis strategic planning. After four years I became tired of predicting the future of pharma and wanted to be again much more hands on science and business [and became managing director of the Novartis BioVenture Fund in the US].”
What is the future of your sector?
Ambros said: “I think most (corporate) funds have a too narrow a portfolio in respect to therapeutics, technologies, platforms, devices, diagnostics, but also on geographic coverage.
“That does not mean one has to have one’s own people on all grounds, but having a network may help. I also think we come into a time when mergers and acquisitions will take place later and later and at the moment only the initial public offering window helps, but what if this is closing again. I prepare for later-stage funding support for all my companies now.
“Overall the future of the sector is going to be stressful and evolution will take its toll on venture capital partnerships but some will do well and form a new group. I am certain we will be among them and it helps to be an leader in this field.”