Another large asset manager is further boosting its presence in the biotech and life sciences with a large fund for startups.
The private equity manager TPG said Tuesday morning it closed a $580 million “Life Sciences Innovations” fund that will invest in about 15 to 20 companies. The new fund follows a $650 million fund at Goldman Sachs, a $500 million-plus fund at JP Morgan and about two dozen funds from biotech and life sciences specialists so far this year.
In the works for a few years, TPG’s fund has already backed multiple biotechs, including antibody-drug conjugates maker MBrace Therapeutics, immunology startup Santa Ana Bio, TYK2 drug developer Sudo Biosciences and oncology-focused Bicara Therapeutics, among others.
TPG, which oversees $229 billion in assets, has poured about $750 million into life sciences in the past few years and about $7.6 billion in healthcare in the past decade, according to its website. Since 2003, it’s invested more than $30 billion in the broader healthcare ecosystem, it said.
Leading the fund’s investment team are partners Shinichiro Fuse, Lucian Iancovici and Carolyn Ng. Fuse has held leadership roles at Orna Therapeutics and ElevateBio and was previously a managing director at MPM Capital. Ng spent more than half a decade as a managing director at Vertex Ventures HC and Iancovici held prior posts at FS Investors, dRx Capital and Qualcomm Ventures.
Ng said in a statement that most of the fund’s capital will go into “preclinical and clinical-stage therapeutics companies.” Therapeutic areas can include oncology, I&I, cardiometabolic, ophthalmology and rare diseases. “We also have a portion of the fund dedicated to commercial stage non-therapeutic opportunities such as medical devices and tech-enabled healthcare services, where we can leverage TPG’s broader private equity healthcare franchise and expertise.”
Editor’s note: This story was updated to include TPG’s most recently updated AUM figure from its earnings on Aug. 6.
