Re Vaxgen
Per RTev's post, the VV's recent investment was $25M. The breakdown is as follows:
siliconinvestor.com
Vulcan, the investment company formed by Microsoft Corp. co-founder Paul Allen, bought 2.17 million shares of VaxGen at $11.50 each.
This would bring the total number of VV shares to just over 3 million. Assuming VV paid $13/share for the first 863,000 shares, that would bring the total investment to around $36M. Close enough for our purposes on this thread.
Here's an article previously referenced on this thread, but worth re-posting in light of the recent investment:
archives.seattletimes.com
The point is, investors love to know what these guys are doing with their own money.
That's what made news the other day in a Bay Area town called Brisbane. Brisbane is close enough to Candlestick Park that one long Willie Mays throw could cover the distance.
Brisbane is also where Robert Nowinski chose to relocate after an enormously successful biotechnology career in Seattle. Formerly a medical professor at the University of Washington and head of a unit at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Nowinski might as well be nicknamed the Founder. In 1981, he started Genetic Systems, which was bought by Bristol-Myers Squibb. In 1989, he founded Icos, now a Bothell superstar. In 1991, he formed PathoGenesis, a company that quickly - for a biotech - brought its treatment for cystic fibrosis patients to market.
Nowinski, 52, now is chairman and chief executive of VaxGen, a Brisbane-based company he co-founded in November 1995.
VaxGen's business is serious. President Don Francis, who co-founded the company with Nowinski, spent 20 years at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Francis was the heroic character in a great HBO film about the battle against Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome. The film was called "And the Band Played On." Matthew Modine portrayed Francis.
VaxGen is developing a vaccine against AIDS, which about 33 million people live with today. About 14 million others have died from it.
To inoculate much of the world against AIDS would have not only major medical consequences, but a financial return, too.
VaxGen shares became publicly held June 30 at $13 apiece. They hung in the mid-teens until the past several days, when word appeared that Paul Allen and his Vulcan Ventures corporate umbrella was a significant shareholder. As a result, the shares spurted to almost $30.
Vulcan had been an early investor, with about 263,000 shares. But Allen bought 600,000 more at the public offering to raise Vulcan's stake to 8.1 percent.
There was a good reason for Allen's interest. Ruth Kunath, who runs his biotechnology fund, already had agreed to be a VaxGen director. (Her husband, Mike Kunath, a Seattle investment adviser and a participant in The Seattle Times professional stock-picking contest, was not aware of this report.)
Other connections exist. Roberta Katz also agreed to serve on VaxGen's board. Among other things, the lawyer was key in the McCaw enterprises, eventually finding her way with another McCaw escapee, Jim Barksdale, to Netscape, a big Bay Area business recently gobbled by America Online.
Then there's Bill Gates. With 13 percent, Gates is the biggest shareholder at Icos, one of Nowinski's earlier successes. There's been no confirmation, but the buzz is that Gates, whose investments dot the landscape, has followed Nowinski to Brisbane, with ownership just under the 5 percent threshold required to be disclosed.
So, there's a stock, traded for only 12 days, that two reasonably intelligent men have chosen to support. Of course, they make many choices and have the disposable income that allows them to take risks others may not suffer so easily. This is a startup, with no sales or profits, dependent on a tough regulatory system for approval of its product, which isn't expected for a couple years.
It's still fun watching, though. |
