-------- Original Message --------
| Subject: | Partner at Domain seeks out innovators |
|---|---|
| Date: | Wed, 16 Apr 2014 10:47:57 -0700 |
| From: | Steve Chapple <intellectualcapitalchapple@gmail.com> |
| To: | intelletualcapitalchapple@gmail.com |
Friends & Colleagues:
In this week's INTELLECTUAL CAPITAL, Kim Kamdar, one of the smartest voices in "science finance" (to coin a timely phrase) talks of why diagnostics companies have become so attractive to Domain, the seminal West Coast/East Coast venture capital firm where she is a partner.
And more--
On the non-profit side, Kamdar is on the board of the Access Youth Academy http://accessyouthacademy.org/ Check it out. "The road from community to college and back"--with an amazing success rate. Good squash players, too.
And feel free to like us on FB; join the discussion at stevechapple.com; or follow on Twitter @stevechapple1
All Best,
Steve
Partner at Domain seeks out innovators
By Steve Chapple 2:50 p.m. April 13, 2014
Photo NELVIN C. CEPEDA • U-T
Kim Kamdar of Domain Associates says the company is excited about biotech and medical device companies in the effort to tailor medicine to specific patients.
Domain — which helpedstart Amgen, Applied Biosystems and Amylin, among others — is 21 percent invested in San Diego and is betting big on diagnostics companies. INTELLECTUAL CAPITAL recently talked with Kamdar, based in the San Diego office, about Domain's investment strategy.
Q: What do you like about San Diego?
A: What I love about the San Diego environment is that it is really collaborative. We could have opened an office in San Francisco 23 years ago, and we would have been one in 40 VCs competing to find new opportunities.
In San Diego, we have a close network of individuals who all work together to help support entrepreneurs and companies. There are a number of great research institutions that are also very collaborative. The environment here, for us, feels unique, close-knit, a place where you can build deep relationships.
Q: Why are you so optimistic about biotech and medical device companies?
A: There was a time frame as the genome was sequenced when people felt this was going to be the Golden Age, that we were now going to understand how to go about identifying and treating disease. It has taken time to really be able to understand the biology. We have a much better understanding now and the technology as a whole has changed pretty dramatically in the last 10 to 15 years. The cost of sequencing is actually coming down.
We will have a much better understanding going forward about diseases and the right types of diagnostics, and will be able to identify patients and tailor therapies, as opposed to the one-shot-for-all approach. Precision medicine is now coming to fruition and I'm, frankly, more excited than I have ever been about the opportunities ahead of us.
Q: How is Domain different?
A: We go for the problem and decide if the solution should be a medical device or a drug. We were one of the first to create specialty pharmaceutical companies that would go after a niche population, this notion of drug hunting, with Dura Pharmaceuticals. That was a new business model.
We were one of the first venture funds to start making trips to Japan, in-licensing compounds and creating companies. Biotech has changed dramatically. It is no longer about the U.S., Europe, Japan. It is a global enterprise.
We started a pretty innovative approach to the Russian market, an exclusive relationship with Rusnano, a government-backed $5 billion fund that set aside $330 million to invest specifically in Domain portfolio companies — to date about $120 million in eight companies — and this was started at a time when financial markets had collapsed, and the onus was on securing late-stage funding.
We have now helped to create a Russian specialty pharma company that has a license to a number of innovative products and will be commercial for the first time this year.
Q: With the situation in the Ukraine, has anything changed?
A: We've built some great relationships. It feels like business as usual to us.
Q: Have you begun to operate in Asia, too?
A: In China, we have a partnership with a group called Beijing Elite, and it's a little bit of the reverse from what we did with Japan.
Whereas we brought a product from Japan and developed it for the U.S. and Europe, in China, we are taking drugs, devices, and diagnostics from within our Domain portfolio and are creating new companies to develop them for the Chinese market.
Q: Was the move to diagnostics straightforward?
A: We have always made investments in the diagnostics space but we are very bullish about the opportunities now for two reasons: The genomics and proteomic technologies are improving greatly, which gives much better insight into the biology and diagnostics and are an important way to remove costs from the health care system.
Our increased efforts in the space were initiated by a diagnostics day that we organized to educate ourselves. We brought in thought leaders from around the world to help us determine what was the art of the possible.
We now have 25 percent of our current fund invested in the diagnostics space, as I said, and love how our companies are performing. Our bullishness is contrarian and in stark contrast to others who feel the space lacks regulatory clarity and is capital-intensive.
Here in San Diego, we have invested in Epic Sciences, a company based on technology out of Peter Kuhn's lab at Scripps — developing a noninvasive approach to detect and monitor cancer and create precision cancer medicine diagnostics; Astute Medicine, a company that is commercializing a test for acute kidney injury; and Applied Proteomics, which is developing blood-based diagnostics tests.
Q: How do you pick people and companies?
A: I look for people who are extremely passionate about what they are doing, who have this mindset that they are going to take no prisoners.
They really must have a drive to succeed. It helps if you have people willing to surround themselves with people even more talented than they are themselves, in order to build great teams.
This is a long business that we are in and it is helpful to work with people that you enjoy being around.
Q: You are one of the few, yet growing, number of women at the top of science investing. Your advice to women?
A: When I pick a scientist or executive, I expect them to be gender-blind. For myself, there have been great women who championed this space, like Ginger More, originally of Oak Investment Partners, and other great mentors.
I don't think it is such a male-dominated industry, actually, and there are now a lot of women who are getting a background in the science. Whether you come from the science or the financial side, it helps to have good operational experience.
Michael Ma, Jack Chapple, and Subin Ryoo contributed research to this column. Join the discussion at http://www.stevechapple.com/
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© Copyright 2014 Steve Chapple
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