SPOTLIGHT ON QUÉBEC
By Shawn Lawrence
A new kind of biotech startup incubator comes to Montréal
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t’s an investment model that has worked well for global life science venture firm Versant Ventures in both the U.S. and in Europe. On the surface, the model is similar to that of other venture capital firms that co-invest in startups with attractive new drugs and platform technologies, but Versant’s model offers a slightly different spin. For starters, Versant specializes in seeking out not just the emerging technologies at an early stage, but also recruits the researchers behind these innovative ideas. Then through partnerships with its virtual incubators, it creates new companies in the hopes of taking these technologies far enough along the value chain in the hopes of selling to a producthungry big biotech and pharma. Now the firm is attempting to replicate this success in Canada, having created two virtual incubators with Blueline Bioscience in Toronto and Inception Sciences in Vancouver, and this past June, announcing the creation of a third called Inception Sciences Montréal. The motivation to expand into Québec comes down to a number of factors according to Clare Ozawa, founding business chief and COO of Inception Sciences. In her role, Ozawa is responsible for Inception Science’s global operations including strategic business development. Working out of the Inception Science San Diego Incubator, she’s seen the Versant model play out before. Charged with overseeing Inception Montréal’s launch, she believes the model will work very well here as well. “There are very good academic institutions in Québec with a strong reputation for world-class science that can support drug discovery,” says Ozawa. “It’s also a province that prides itself on its strong history in the life sciences sector.” This is important, she says, as the idea behind Inception’s entry into locations like Montréal is to capitalize on the strengths of the provinces bioscience assets to generate companies. “It’s all part of a creating a value chain,” explains Ozawa. “This is what really differentiates us. Inception Sciences operates as a kind of mother ship or incubator-type holding company, spinning out new drugs and development programs most of which are drawn from academic institutions. So you need a strong talent pool to work from.” The hope is that the new drugs and programs that are to be incubated will be done so in part-
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Biotechnology Focus / August/September 2014
“Inception Sciences operates as a kind of mother ship or incubator-type holding company, spinning out new drugs and development programs most of which are drawn from academic institutions. So you need a strong talent pool to work from.” — Clare Ozawa nership with large biopharmaceutical companies. The companies will not only provide the funding, but if successful, provide a path of exit through pre-negotiated acquisitions. “It all comes down to big pharma and even big biotech firms facing the problem of their pipelines drying up and their internal R&D efforts not being as productive as they need them to be. They’ve shifted huge amounts of dollars into what’s called external R&D and this is where we come in with Versant Ventures and our incubators ready to provide this R&D. We’re like the middle-person, taking early stage discovery far enough along to the point of exit,” says Ozawa. Again, this is where the model differentiates from the norm. When the technology or company is sold, unlike other incubators the same scientists will remain with the Inception Sciences incubator and continue to work together on the next great discovery or project. “It’s a model where Versant is actually partnering with the scientists. And everyone benefits when we reach a promising milestone. The product may be sold but the team stays to set up the next program,” she explains.
