Christoph Westphal (pictured), president of UK-listed drugs company GlaxoSmithKline’s (GSK) corporate venturing unit SR One, is leaving later this year to primarily focus on his independent venture capital firm after shaking up its staff in the past 12 months.
David Phillips, a partner at SR One, said: "Christoph will transition out over next several quarters. He will assist in finding a long-term replacement and will continue to be supported by myself running Europe and Brian Gallagher running the US. Overall message is ‘business as usual’."
Westphal will also remain an adviser to GSK as co-chair of the Sirtris scientific advisory board. Westphal sold Sirtis to GSK in 2008 for $720m and was initially made head of GSK’s Centre of Excellence for External Drug Discovery (CEEDD).
GSK invested in Longwood Founders Fund, an independent venture capital fund Westphal co-founded with Sirtis colleagues Michelle Dipp and Richard Aldrich, last year after Wetphal was named head of SR One in April 2010.
Moncef Slaoui, chairman of research and development at GSK, said: "In addition to his achievements at Sirtris, he has brought an entrepreneur’s perspective to our thinking on venture capital investments and deals to help us implement R&D’s strategy to diversify through external collaborations."
SR One has 25 private and public portfolio companies, and has invested more than $560m in biotech.
The past year, after Westphal took over, has seen a number of personnel changes at SR One.
Michael Diem has become vice-president of business development at the rare diseases division of GSK after joining SR One in 2005.
His internal move follows the departure of two other SR One partners. Mathieu Lane has left to become a vice-president of investment banking at alternative investments firm Guggenheim Partners and in January Carol Ashe became vice-president of corporate development at the specialty generics and technology department of Endo Pharmaceuticals.
In turn, Vikas Goyal joined SR One’s Boston office earlier in the year, after interning with the corporate venturing team since 2009. Brian Gallagher, who worked with Westphal at Sirtris Pharmaceuticals, set up SR One’s Boston office last year.
Its offices cover San Francisco (where Simeon George is based), Pennsylvania (where Rajeev Dadoo and Kent Gossett are), Boston, and the UK, where Deborah Harland and David Phillips work). SR One is also investigating whether to start investing in China.
In December, GSK set aside £50m ($78m) to launch a corporate venturing fund for the UK’s early-stage healthcare companies and spin-outs from universities.