Biotech investment firm Samsara BioCapital has added three new venture partners in recent months to expand its network, support first-time CEOs in its portfolio and guide more companies by way of board seats.
One of the venture partners also has government policy experience, giving the California firm an in-house expert to advise on some of the biggest legislative forces in drug development today, including the Inflation Reduction Act and the ongoing Biosecure bill.
Srini AkkarajuThe eight-year-old firm has added former Chinook Therapeutics CEO Eric Dobmeier, ex-Atreca CEO John Orwin and previous Alnylam public policy and government relations leader Alan Eisenberg. Samsara now has 14 venture partners, founder and managing partner Srini Akkaraju told Endpoints News in an interview.
The team’s expansion comes as Samsara’s portfolio companies have hit some key milestones in recent months, including multiple megarounds, EyeBio’s up to $3 billion exit to Merck, OnKure’s reverse merger with Reneo Pharmaceuticals, IPO planning at Upstream Bio and a Nasdaq listing for Alumis.
Akkaraju is quite familiar with Dobmeier and Orwin by way of Seagen. Akkaraju served on the antibody-drug conjugate pioneer’s board for 17 years until 2020, during which Orwin was also a board member. Dobmeier had risen to the role of chief operating officer at the Seattle biotech before departing to become an executive at Silverback Therapeutics and then Chinook, which he oversaw until its $3.2 billion exit to Novartis last year.
The Samsara founder said biotech is innovating at a faster clip than ever before, and the deal flow far exceeds the levels he saw in the early days of his investing career two decades ago. That calls for experienced veterans to help guide nascent companies.
“The reality is the science and the innovation and the ideas, there’s more of them than experienced CEOs to run these [biotechs],” Akkaraju said. “But everybody has to be a first-time something, and first-time CEOs are always going to be there, and they’re an important part of our ecosystem. I personally think people like Eric and John are phenomenal to help these first-time CEOs do their job as well as they possibly can and grow a little bit faster into it.”
Orwin was already chair of Samsara portfolio company Cargo Therapeutics. He’s also on the boards of Travere Therapeutics, AnaptysBio and Nested Therapeutics.
Meanwhile, Eisenberg had spent about a decade at the Biotechnology Innovation Organization before working on government relations for Celgene and then Alnylam.
“We’ve all been talking about Biosecure, we’ve been talking about the IRA for the last couple of years and the impact that will have and changes to Medicare Part D, etc. We read about it, we see it, and we talk to people about it. We get a little bit of, I’d say, a rudimentary understanding,” Akkaraju said. “Then, Alan’s come in and provided us a much greater level of understanding of this.”
Investors could rely on outside experts and call them up when they need counsel on matters related to government policy, IRA implications and the like. But Akkaraju said he’d “rather have that person at the table all the time.”
Akkaraju noted the trio of new team members — who are part-time — is not a sign that Samsara will ramp up the number of investments it makes.
“It certainly has an impact on deal flow because all of these guys have great networks out there that will bring in opportunities,” Akkaraju said, but “it’s all about doing as good of a job as we possibly can in making a decision to do a deal and managing the investment and working with the portfolio company.”