Frazier & Co.
This article was originally published in Start Up
Executive Summary
After carving a niche for itself as a mezzanine-stage venture investor, Frazier & Co. has evolved into stage-idependent investing. It has also changed its portfolio from one consisting almost exclusively of venture investments to one balanced almost evenly between corporate and venture investments.
You may also be interested in...
AureoGen Biosciences Inc.
Formed by Kalamazoo-based Pharmacia alumni, AureoGen Biosciences Inc. is genetically engineering cyclic peptides to create second-generation, resistance-proof anti-infective and anti-fungal therapeutics.
Pain Therapeutics
Pain seems as close to a sure bet as the pharmaceutical industry has to offer. Forecasts call for the worldwide analgesic market, already $38 billion in 2002, to grow at a 20% annual clip, nearly doubling to $75 billion by the year 2010. For new drug developers, pain also has the advantage of offering clearly definable endpoints-less pain-and a relatively short duration for clinical trials. No surprise then that more than 200 companies have a hand in developing or marketing pain therapeutics. Among them, the three young companies profiled here-AlgoRx Pharmaceuticals Inc., Algos Therapeutics Inc., and TheraQuest Biosciences LLC.
Ambrx Inc.
Ambrx is using its technology for engineering proteins with novel amino acids--beyond the 20 that oocur in nature--to enhance the properties of proteins whose potential therapeutic uses, as well as liabilities, are known.