GCV Powerlist 2016: Geeta Vemuri, Baxalta

Baxalta Ventures is the corporate venture capital (CVC) unit of Baxalta International with more than $200m under management, led by managing partner Geeta Vemuri.

The fund originated from Baxter Ventures, which was started in 2012 with a now separate $200m pool of capital from Baxter Healthcare in Chicago, US. 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.

At Baxter, Vemuri’s strategy is to invest directly in therapeutics, diagnostics, IT solutions, and medical devices companies, and in select funds as a limited partner – these commitments include VenBio’s first two funds, OrbiMed Asia Partners Fund I, NY Digital Health Accelerator and Vitesse Biologics Accelerator, Baxalta said.

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, while former colleague Priyanka Rohatgi left this year to join AbbVie Ventures under Margarita Chavez.

Vemuri said: “With the platform we have designed in Baxalta Ventures, the environment is ideal to create new pipeline opportunities by structuring capital investments with leading entrepreneurs while focusing on accelerating cutting-edge biotechnologies that address unmet patient needs.”

Since 2012, the team has made more than 17 investments as a lead or participating investor, and spun out companies directly from research institutions by providing seed or first institutional capital – Calabash, a Massachusetts General Hospital, Brigham and Partners Innovation spinout in anesthesia, and Opsonix,  a Harvard and Wyss Institute hemodialysis device company, Baxalta said.

In July 2015, Vemuri obtained a fresh pool of $200m to invest in companies and novel accelerator ideas over five to six years – the group has already made three new investments – Gadeta’s $7.9m series A round, Syntimmunie’s $10m raise and True North’s $40m C round – and also created a “build-to-buy” accelerator, which will house project-focused companies with a pre-negotiated option for Baxalta to acquire.

Baxalta Ventures has both financial and strategic goals – the group has returned over 1.5 times invested capital since 2012, with a more than 130% internal rate of return (a measure of annual performance), and has created multiple business development opportunities post investment for the parent company. A recent such collaboration was established with novel gene editing technology company Precision BioSciences, where Baxalta established a successful global R&D and commercial collaboration with $105m upfront and additional milestone payments as part of the deal, Baxalta said.

Vemuri said: “The goal for Baxalta Ventures this year is to keep the momentum going and create additional pipeline opportunities for the parent organisation through existing investments or through new commitments.”