A Few Biotech Success Stories Will Excite VCs

VENTURE capitalists (VCs) may be shunning biotech firms here due to the longer time required for returns, but that may change once there are a few success stories in place, observed one bio-entrepreneur. 'All it takes is for one small biotech company to get a drug successfully through clinical trials, and be bought for millions and all the VCs will want to invest in this sector,' said Terrance Snutch, vice-president and chief scientific officer of biopharmaceutical firm Neuromed Technologies of Canada. Dr Snutch was speaking from experience. While in Singapore for a two-day International Neuroscience Conference at the Tan Tock Seng Hospital, he told BT how he managed to raise almost US$50 million in the past six years to finance Neuromed, the company he founded in 1995 to produce calcium channel blockers for relieving chronic pain. He was helped by the relatively greater appetite for risk among VCs in Canada. He noted that the majority of the 65 biotech companies spun off from the University of British Columbia - where he also teaches molecular neurobiology - are backed by private investors. This compares with the largely government-funded ventures in Singapore. Dr Snutch reckons that the difference has to do with the presence of successful homegrown biotech firms.