SR One, the venture capital firm spun off by pharmaceutical firm GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), has recruited Chris Chai and Peter Van Vlasselaer as venture partners.
GSK spun off the unit into an independent firm in November 2020 with $500m in funding and operates out of offices in London in the UK, as well as San Francisco and Philadelphia in the United States.
Chai had been chief financial officer of Principia Biopharma, the biopharmaceutical company that floated in 2018 having raised $127m in funding from investors including SR One, since 2013.
Van Vlasselaer was a pharmaceutical executive for two other SR One portfolio companies. He had been CEO and president of iPierian, which was bought for a fee of up to $725m in 2014, as well as co-founder and chairman of True North Therapeutics, which was acquired for $825m in 2017.
Simeon J. George, chief executive of SR One, said: “Chris and Peter bring an extraordinary depth of financial and drug-hunting expertise to our team.
“As we move forward to build on our newly independent fund and portfolio of emerging life sciences companies, their insight, perspective and experience will add to the expertise already resident in our trans-Atlantic team.”
