GSK and Avalon announce the first startup fruit of $495m biotech alliance announced in April.
Pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) and US-based VC Avalon Ventures have announced the creation of the first of up to ten San Diego-based biotech firms as part of a $495m alliance signed in April.
Sitari Pharmaceuticals, which is using technology licensed from Stanford University, will receive a total of $10m from Avalon and GSK to get the San Diego-based company off the ground. The company will investigate treatments for celiac disease, an autoimmune disorder which targets the small intestine. Avalon also created COI Pharmaceuticals, a support firm which will supply people and infrastructure to Sitari and other firms to emerge from the alliance.
Pearl Huang, GSK’s head of discovery partnerships with academia, said: “We’re looking forward to getting this one off the ground, but also to the others that are queuing up now. We’re seeking really high-quality opportunities. Avalon is finding them and bringing them to us.”
She added: “There’s excess laboratory capacity all over the world. It was time to do something a little bit differently, in part because it was bankrupting the entire industry. The whole idea here was to not walk away from innovation, not walk away from potentially transformative medicines … but design an agreement where we could share that risk, and then of course also share the reward if we’re successful.”
