Janis Naeve, managing director of Amgen Ventures, has headed the corporate venturing unit since 2005, a year after it was formed under the leadership of Jay Hagan with $100m.
Parent company Amgen said it had always appreciated the importance of funding early-stage innovation as it was founded in 1980 by venture capitalists and scientists.
Naeve says on the website: “At Amgen Ventures, we unlock value by making investments that match promising early innovations with more than 30 years of biotechnology experience.”
Her own experience does not reach back quite so far. Following her PhD and post-doctoral fellowship in neurobiology in California, she worked on business development at Aurora Biosciences and X-Ceptor Therapeutics from 1997 to 2004 before joining Amgen in March 2005.
Amgen Ventures looks for investments that can help its parent’s strategic areas of focus in oncology, cardiovascular, inflammation, bone health, nephrology, metabolic disorders, neuroscience, and discovery research and technology.
Its deals in the past year have included pain management drug developer SiteOne Therapeutics, which secured Amgen as a research and development partner and lead investor in its $15m series B round in January this year, while Akili Interactive Labs raised $11.9m in an extension from Merck Group and Amgen, raising the round’s total to $42.4m last summer.
Its exits have included Ra Pharmaceuticals, which floated in the middle of its range to raise $91.6m in October. Fund activity includes Amgen’s European affiliate joining limited partners including Cleveland Clinic, Maccabi Healthcare Services and Medison Pharma to back the eHealth Ventures incubator.