When Capstan Therapeutics agreed to be acquired by AbbVie for a record-breaking price of $2.1B upfront, it had just started its Phase 1 study in healthy volunteers, was well-capitalized, and was on a mission to put a range of autoimmune diseases into deep remission and maybe even cure them. Some people will wonder about the significance of this deal and what lessons it may have for their own ventures. We can share our insights. We’ve been on the Capstan journey since the beginning and are incredibly proud of the team and its work. This is a story worth hearing.

Last March, our Planetary Health team convened investors from 25 of Boston's leading climate tech firms for our own version of March Madness, to predict which planetary/climate tech sub-sectors would have the most successful 2024. Well, it's the moment we've all been waiting for. The results are in!

Today, AbbVie announced it is acquiring Aliada for $1.4 billion, motivated by the potential for ALIA-1758, Aliada’s lead program, to be the best-in-class for the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease, and by the potential of the BBB-crossing platform to enhance its discovery and development efforts for other difficult-to-treat neurological diseases. As we congratulate the Aliada team, we wanted to share a bit more of the story behind the second significant acquisition from our Raven incubator this year and the first full-circle acquisition of a company we built with technology spun out from a larger company.

A LinkedIn discussion about “crossover” financing rounds deepened my sense that we’re not all saying the same thing when we’re saying the same thing. And that’s a challenge, if not necessarily always a problem, in an industry that’s only becoming more scientifically and financially complex as it matures. Because to understand one another and avoid unnecessary hiccups it helps to have a common language.

The federal government must address the failure of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) with speed and clarity before it metastasizes into a national crisis, so the ecosystem of institutions in which SVB has operated, including other banks and investors, can help bridge companies so that they can continue to operate while they wait for their deposits.

The run-on-the-bank panic around SVB would have been quelled if everyone was dissuaded from succumbing to mass hysteria. Understanding what happened can help prevent further bank runs.

Interest in life science technologies and tools is accelerating with the advent of CRISPR and other aspects of synthetic biology. The ability to have a capital efficient way to advance these innovations is very attractive and will help drive innovation.

The so-called venture creation model has fully taken root, underpinned and enabled by biotech's longest-ever boom cycle and unprecedented sums of available capital.

Adam Rosenberg lifts the curtain on what biotech venture partners and entrepreneurs-in-residence really do.