Nimbus Discovery, a corporate venturing-backed US-based biopharmaceutical company, has hired as its executive chairman Daniel Lynch (pictured), former chief executive at peer ImClone Systems.
He’s taking over the role from Bruce Booth, a Nimbus co-founder and partner at venture capital firm Atlas Venture, who is remaining on the company’s board.
Booth said: “One of Dan’s many strengths is his ability to drive young companies to achieve their goals. In particular, his proven track record in creating value through partnerships will be important as we secure a series of program-focused transactions.”
Lynch previously sold ImClone to drugs company Eli Lilly and was executive chairman of two other biotechs, Avila Therapeutics and Stromedix, which were acquired this year by peers Celgene and Biogen Idec, respectively, according to news provider Fierce Biotech.
In July last year, SR One and Lilly Ventures, the corporate venturing divisions of multinational pharmaceutical conglomerates GlaxoSmithKline and Eli Lilly respectively, co-led a $24m series A round for Nimbus Discovery.
Together with venture capital firm Atlas Venture and the two corporate venturing units, the Nimbus A round also included software comapny Microsfot co-founder Bill Gates. Gates had previously invested in Nimbus’ seed round in March 2011. His investment was then reported as $10m of an undisclosed sum, funded by Gates, Atlas Venture and Richard Friesner, the co-founder of drug discovery company Schrodinger.
Founded in 2009 by Atlas and Schrodinger, Nimbus is looking to use computational drug discovery techniques to develop medicines around inflammation, cancer and metabolic disease, and wants to partner with larger pharmaceutical companies early in the process.