Barbara Dalton has run US-listed drugs company Pfizer’s corporate venturing unit since she joined in 2007 as vice-president. But her knowledge of the industry stretches back a quarter of a century to when she started out as president of UK-based pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline’s CVC unit, SR One, in 1993.
She joined corporate venturing unit Pfizer Venture Investments from EuclidSR Partners, a venture firm backed by GlaxoSmithKline, where she worked from 2000 to 2007 after a seven-year stint at SR One. At EuclidSR she worked with Elaine Jones, who also joined her at Pfizer Venture Investments, while the third member of the team is Bill Burkoth,.
Her small team at Pfizer puts out about $50m a year in cheque sizes of up to $10m a round and is both active and successful. Her Pfizer profile says she has managed more than 30 fund investments and 80 diverse company investments in the US and Europe and has had direct investing responsibility for biotechnology therapeutic and platform companies, as well as some healthcare IT and service businesses, including Alere, Ciphergen, Corixa, Genset, Gliatech, Gryphon, iJet, Lexicon, OGS, Third Wave, Rib-X Pharmaceuticals.
Her latest deal was joining the board of US-based biopharmaceutical firm Complexa after a $62m series C round in July.
Founded in 2012, Complexa is working on a therapy called CXA-10 for focal segmental glomerulosclerosis, an orphan disease affecting the kidney, as well as for a rare pulmonary disease known as pulmonary arterial hypertension.
The funding will be used to advance CXA-10 into two phase 2 clinical trials, each aimed at one of the aforementioned conditions. The trials are expected to begin in early 2018.
The money will also support the progression of a third treatment that will target an undisclosed condition, advancing it towards an investigational new drug filing with US regulator the Food and Drug Administration.
Daltonm who has a PhD in microbiology and immunology from Medical College of Pennsylvania, shows no signs of changing.