Nice article on Dr. Chris Evans of Merlin Biosciences (& ex of Chiroscience & several other things) -
independent.co.uk
.... Unlike almost all other venture operations, Merlin creates companies, rather than cherry-picks existing operations for investment.
"In the Merlin fund, we don't invest in companies like a typical venture capitalist. What is unusual, unique about this first fund, is that we set out to create companies, not to back them. Everything was built from scratch. We set out to create nine companies in nine areas and we picked cancer, vaccines, brain trauma, gene therapy, drug delivery, stem cells, and so on, and we formed the companies."
His Merlin team, hand-picked from his various companies and through contacts, means he can spread the load. "You can't do all these things yourself because you might fall under a bus or something. I have invested quite a few million of my own in these companies and raised a #40m Merlin fund to invest in them.
"Each of the nine has been established, they are growing, and they are worth between #20m and #100m each at this point. The first ones will start listing, maybe later this year or certainly next year, and there could well be two or three listings from the Merlin stable." Names to watch out for from this stable are ReNeuron which works in the area of brain disorders, Cyclacel in cancer, Eurogene in cardiovascular, Vectura, drug delivery, and Microscience, novel vaccines. ..." snip |
