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.

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.

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.