Graeme Martin (pictured), founding member and head of Takeda Ventures, the corporate venturing arm of Japan-based drug producer Takeda, will be leaving the company at the end of March 2017 and will be replaced by Michael Martin.
Graeme Martin, a member of the Global Corporate Venturing Powerlist in 2016, said: “I will be leaving Takeda [on] March 31, 2017, and have already formally handed over the lead of Takeda Ventures to Dr Mike Martin, who is San Diego-based.
“I plan to remain active in a select number of venture related activities, but do not currently plan on taking any operational roles.”
Graeme has been president and chief executive of Japan-based pharmaceutical company Takeda’s corporate venturing unit since 2005, having joined in 2003 just as it was taking flight.
Prior to Takeda, Martin had close to 30 years of pharma R&D experience, initially with Wellcome Research Laboratories – where he honed his approach to drug discovery under the tutelage of Sir James Black – then subsequently with GlaxoWellcome (now GlaxoSmithKline), before moving to the US to join Switzerland-based drugs peer F Hoffmann-La Roche in Palo Alto, California.
Martin has also enjoyed stints in biotech and as an independent consultant. For his GCV Powerlist 2016 award, he said: “We have now seen a complete cycle in the life sciences capital markets that has driven therapeutic innovation forward in an amazing way.
“The challenge is now to keep pace with the breadth of strategic opportunity both in front of us, and that we wish to be involved in creating.
“Measures of strategic value are tough to quantify in the near term, since the value realisation from corporate venturing has the same timecourse as bringing any new drug to patients. However, we have now been operating long enough to demonstrate that even with a purely strategic approach to investing, we are returning significantly more to treasury than we withdraw, including our operating costs. That is a pretty efficient use of capital for any R&D organisation.
”The soft value comes on top of this – a 10-times leverage of third-party dollars, a ringside seat on innovation as it emerges and access to opportunity before it is in the public domain. Why many pharma groups continue to tinker with under-resourced venture initiatives and question its value is a perpetual mystery to me.”
Michael Martin joined Takeda Ventures in 2015 after three years in its global licensing and business development team. having come to Takeda through its purchase of cancer treatment company Intellikine for up to $310m, where he had been a vice-president, at the end of 2011.