Jens Eckstein took over as president of GlaxoSmithKline’s independent corporate venturing unit, SR One, in 2012 and last year put out a new record for the group with more than $100m invested, he said.
But as to whether it was a record year in all regards, Eckstein was more modest. He said the main question as to the numbers was whether one only counted new company deals or if one includes follow-up investments for SR One, which has just passed its 30th anniversary of investing. He said: “If one does the latter, we hit a new record in 2015 with 54 financings – more than one transaction per calendar week. The 54 transactions included 10 new companies, five fund of fund investments (legacy), one IPO participation, two public follow-ups.”
SR One is independent of GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) and not a strategic investor, with the pharma group also doing some strategic venture investing on its own, as both fund commitments and direct equity investments. Eckstein listed SR One’s other successes as making five seed/venture creation investments; taking on Jim Broderick, ex-venture capitalist at Morgenthaler as SR One’s first entrepreneur-in-residence (EiR), making its second digital Health investment in Avhana and seeing SR One partner Debbie Harland nominated for the GCV Rising Star award.
Outside the US, Eckstein said SR One had a Canada innovation fund of $50m, as well as one in the UK, where GSK is headquartered. He has also been spending time in Asia. Eckstein said: “I have been in Singapore three times in the last 12 months and started to bring life science entrepreneurs together. Know the landscape pretty well by now for healthcare, digital health and life sciences. Working with Vertex Ventures and EDB on a couple of projects right now.”
He joined SR One having worked at venture firm TVM Capital as a general partner since 2007. Eckstein joined TVM as a principal in 2004. At TVM he became chief executive of SelectX Pharmaceuticals, as he also worked as an entrepreneur-in-residence at the company.
He gained a PhD in biological chemistry from University of Konstanz and Harvard University and went on to be a post-doctoral fellow at University of California, San Francisco. Between 1993 and 1999 Eckstein worked at healthcare startup Mitotix, which was acquired in 2000 by German biotech company GPC. He then worked at Enanta Pharmaceuticals as director of lead discovery and research from 1999 to 2003, before founding Akikoa Pharmaceuticals, where he worked from 2003 to 2005.
He is an adviser to the Alzheimer Research Forum, a founding member of the Cure Dystonia Initiative Advisory Council and a Kauffman fellow.
GlaxoSmithKline’s investment activity since the beginning of 2015
