Scott Mlyn | CNBC
Investment firms of ultra-wealthy families are helping fuel the venture capital rebound in biotechnology. In August, family offices made 52 direct investments in private companies, with biotech startups representing about 20% of transactions, according to data provided exclusively to CNBC by Fintrx, a private wealth intelligence platform.
Stanley Druckenmiller’s Duquesne Family Office, one of the most active family offices in the U.S., has backed at least four pharmaceuticals or life sciences companies this year, according to Fintrx. Last month, Duquesne participated in a $90 million Series C round for Epicrispr Biotechnologies. The eight-year-old startup is pioneering a new gene therapy for a rare muscle disorder known as facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy, or FSHD.
Druckenmiller said in January that Duquesne had made substantial investments in biotech due to the potential of artificial intelligence.
“I knew because I’ve been on the board of Memorial Sloan Kettering for 30 years, that probably the best use case out there of AI is biotech through drug discovery, diagnostics, monitoring everything,” he said in an interview conducted by Morgan Stanley.
In August, the namesake family office of Jeff Bezos also joined a $188 million Series E for LifeMine Therapeutics, which uses AI to analyze fungal genomes to develop new drugs. LifeMine is currently testing a drug compound to prevent organ failure in transplant recipients.
Bill Gates’ venture capital firm, Gates Frontier, also participated in the megaround.
That said, investors are writing fewer checks overall, especially for early-stage startups, with a greater share of funding going toward companies with drugs already in testing, according to SVB’s analysis, citing its own data and data from PitchBook.
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