Ebb & Flow

Making good on plans to expand its footprint in Asia, MPM Capital made a $20 million investment in Hyderabad CRO Sai Avantium last week. The company's primary focus is on providing chemistry services to biotech and pharma partners.

MPM's William Green said the firm had identified discovery and preclinical pharmaceutical outsourcing as a particularly ripe area for investment in emerging markets. "We then talked to our portfolio companies and found that a majority of them were outsourcing chemistry work to the same partner, which was Sai," he said...