BioCentury
ARTICLE | Finance

Ebb & Flow

May 22, 2006 7:00 AM UTC

By all accounts, last week was a banner week on the venture side. A total of $175.4 million was raised by private biotechs, which far exceeded the industry’s average of about $100 million per week since the start of 2005. The heavy lifting was done by three companies - Nanosphere ($57 million raised), MacroGenics ($45 million) and Intercept ($41 million). What’s notable is that the lead investors on the Nanosphere and Intercept deals are not members of the typical VC crowd.

Intercept’s round was led by Italy’s Genextra, and included Balyasny Asset Management and JAFCO Life Science, the U.S. venture arm of Japan’s JAFCO Co. ...