Biotech startups benefit from collaborations between experts, big pharma & financiers
Foreign investor Versant Ventures, one of the most active foreign investment firms in our country’s reviving biotech industry, just backed another Canadian biotech startup. Montreal-based Repare secured US$68 million in early-stage financing to support the development of “precision oncology” drugs that target cancerous tumours.
This is the sixth firm in Canada to be created, incubated, and financed by Versant Ventures, the firm that, since 2003, opened three incubators in Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal, largely supported by Toronto-based regenerative medicine developer BlueRock Therapeutics and Bayer AG. According to The Globe and Mail‘s Sean Silcoff, the Canadian firms backed by Versant have raised more than a combined CA$600-million since.