Geeta Vemuri, head of Baxalta Ventures, has left after its parent company’s acquisition by drugs peer Shire and its focus on strategic dealmaking.
By email, Vemuri, a member of this year’s Global Corporate Venturing Powerlist 100, said: “I left Baxalta after Shire’s acq[uisition] as Shire is not going to invest in small companies as venture investments.”
Shire’s spokeswoman by email said: “We are continuing to support the legacy Baxalta Ventures portfolio, including honouring our existing commitments, and have designated representatives from Shire to serve on the board of directors for portfolio companies as appropriate.
“We remain interested in investing in innovation at various stages of development. For example, from a deal perspective, as always, we remain interested in transactions in which we gain access to innovative products and technologies that fit our strategy.
“While such transactions may include equity consideration as a component, we have made the strategic decision that we will not make additional venture financing or other equity investments that are not associated with product or other strategic rights, including both new rounds for current portfolio companies beyond our existing commitments and new investments.”
Baxalta Ventures had been set up with more than $200m under management and its deals had included Gadeta’s $7.9m series A round, Syntimmunie’s $10m raise and True North’s $40m C round.
The fund originated from Baxter Ventures, which was started in 2012 with a now separate $200m pool of capital from Baxter Healthcare in Chicago. Last year, Baxalta separated from Baxter – with Anne Sissel leading Baxter Ventures’ $200m fund – and Vemuri built a new team at Baxalta, which includes GCV Rising Star 2016 Marta New* (who also said she had left Baxalta for a new role), while former colleague Priyanka Rohatgi left this year to join AbbVie Ventures under Margarita Chavez.
Vemuri was hired to establish and run the new CVC group at Baxter. She came from venture capital firm Quaker Partners, which managed $700m in healthcare funds. According to data provider Crunchbase, some of her representative Quaker portfolio board member or observer responsibilities included Protez, Cempra, Corridor, Regado and Tranzyme Pharma.
Before Quaker, she was an associate at Toucan Capital, where she was responsible for investments in seed-stage and startup biotechs, and was earlier an analyst at SalomonSmithBarney and First Union Securities, and a research scientist at the Wistar Institute. After studying in India, Vemuri completed her post-doctoral fellowship at Thomas Jefferson University and gained an MBA from Pennsylvania University’s Wharton School.
* Article updated for New’s current status.