David Mott at New Enterprise Associates has spearheaded the development of an orphan drug accelerator that plans to hunt down the best in vivo-stage assets in academia, biopharma and the nonprofits, assemble them in a portfolio of rare disease therapies and mold them into pipeline programs that can be spun out into a slate of new biotech companies.
NEA’s high-profile biotech partner Mott–who helmed MedImmune until AstraZeneca ($AZN) came along and scooped it up for $15.6 billion–partnered with Pfizer Ventures and gained the support of Alexandria Real Estate Equities in piecing together the initial $16 million in startup funds for the newly coined Cambridge, MA-based Cydan.
{iframe}http://www.fiercebiotech.com/story/nea-pfizer-build-launch-pad-portfolio-orphan-drug-biotechs/2013-04-10{/iframe}