Global Corporate Venturing Rising Stars Awards 2018: Gladys Nunez

Starting in a bioscientist position at Anglo-Swedish drugs group AstraZeneca after graduating from Southampton University, Gladys Nunez found her home at Amgen two years later when she joined the firm as a biochemist in 1997.

In 2002, Nunez joined the company’s business development unit, and has completed numerous deals for the company over the past 13 years, focused on discovery, development, and commercial applications in life sciences. She also managed Amgen’s Academic Alliance Group, an initiative to build bridges between academia and industry through the establishment of comprehensive academic alliances, for two years from 2008 before becoming a principal at Amgen Ventures at the end of 2014.

She said on her updated LinkedIn profile: “As my office is located on the east coast of the US, I also focus on east coast networking activities with institutional, corporate and academic groups including Canada.

“One of my focus areas is also working closely with Amgen’s digital health organisation which has been established over the past two years supporting alliances with key digital health venture groups and organisations.”

For more than a decade, Amgen Ventures has invested in more than 30 emerging biotechnology companies to advance promising medicines and technologies.

For the Global Corporate Venturing annual review, Janis Naeve, managing director at Amgen Ventures, said its focus was on next-generation technologies to improve immuno-oncology and cell-based therapies. Its deals in this area in the last two months of last year include Obsidian Therapeutics, which raised $49.5m with Nunez joining the board as an observer, Syapse’s $30m D round, Fortuna Fix’s $25m B round, Immatics’ $58m E round and Kymera’s $30m A round.

Probably its biggest deal was Wuxi NextCode, which achieved a final close of its Amgen Ventures-backed series B round at $240m with additional commitments from investors including Temasek.