{"id":8978,"date":"2012-04-10T10:01:06","date_gmt":"2012-04-10T14:01:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sciencebusiness.technewslit.com\/?p=8978"},"modified":"2012-04-10T10:01:06","modified_gmt":"2012-04-10T14:01:06","slug":"merck-investing-in-life-sciences-venture-fund","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/technewslit.com\/sciencebusiness\/?p=8978","title":{"rendered":"Merck Investing in Life Sciences Venture Fund"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/technewslit.com\/sciencebusiness\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/CurrencyDice_M4DGROUP_Flickr.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-5768\" title=\"Currency Dice\" src=\"http:\/\/technewslit.com\/sciencebusiness\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/CurrencyDice_M4DGROUP_Flickr.jpg\" alt=\"Currency dice (MD4 Group\/Flickr)\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" srcset=\"https:\/\/technewslit.com\/sciencebusiness\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/CurrencyDice_M4DGROUP_Flickr.jpg 300w, https:\/\/technewslit.com\/sciencebusiness\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/CurrencyDice_M4DGROUP_Flickr-150x100.jpg 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flagshipventures.com\/about\/news\/flagship-ventures-and-merck-research-labs-form-strategic-collaboration-foster-early-stage\">Flagship Ventures<\/a> in Cambridge, Massachusetts says Merck&#8217;s venture arm has joined in a recent investment fund backing start-up life sciences companies. The amount of the investment, which was not disclosed, was made by Merck&#8217;s Research Ventures Fund in Flagship Ventures Fund IV that closed in January.<\/p>\n<p>Flagship says its <a href=\"http:\/\/www.flagshipventures.com\/about\/news\/flagship-ventures-closes-270-million-early-stage-venture-capital-fund\">Ventures Fund IV<\/a> will be devoted primarily to early-stage investments. The company says the fund raised $270 million, exceeding its goal of $250 million, with participation from pension funds, foundations, fund-of-funds, corporations, and individuals.<\/p>\n<p>Merck has increased its venture activity in recent months, with its <a href=\"http:\/\/www.merck.com\/ghi\/\">Global Health Innovation Fund<\/a> established in late 2010, and more recently, the Merck Research Ventures Fund in September 2011. The industry Web site <a href=\"http:\/\/www.xconomy.com\/national\/2011\/09\/15\/merck-joins-the-big-pharma-vc-party-setting-up-250m-biotech-investment-fund\/\">Xconomy<\/a> quoted a Merck spokesperson in September that the Merck Research Ventures Fund would make investments &#8220;in a small number of geographically diverse life-science venture firms,&#8221; with direct investments in biotech companies possible later on.<\/p>\n<p>In March, Merck <a href=\"http:\/\/sciencebusiness.technewslit.com\/?p=8601\">revealed plans<\/a> to establish the California Institute for Biomedical Research (Calibr), an independent, not-for-profit organization to speed the translation of basic biomedical research into new medicines to treat disease. Merck is expected to provide up to $90 million financing for Calibr over seven years.<\/p>\n<p>In addition to its venture capital funding, Flagship also acts as a founder of start-up companies through its Venture Labs division. The company says it has started some 20 companies working in protein therapeutics, systems biology, synthetic biology, renewable fuels, DNA sequencing, and nanotechnology.<\/p>\n<p>Read more:\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/sciencebusiness.technewslit.com\/?p=8601\">Merck to Fund New Translational Research Institute<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Image: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/m4dgroup\/6001102681\/in\/photostream\/\">MD4 Group\/Flickr<\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">*\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 *\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 *<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Flagship Ventures in Cambridge, Massachusetts says Merck&#8217;s venture arm has joined in a recent investment fund backing start-up life sciences companies. The amount of the investment, which was not disclosed, was made by Merck&#8217;s Research Ventures Fund in Flagship Ventures Fund IV that closed in January. Flagship says its Ventures Fund IV will be devoted [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[31,21,74,23,24,64,19],"class_list":["post-8978","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-finance","tag-biomedical","tag-biotech","tag-entrepreneurs","tag-equity","tag-investment","tag-life-sciences","tag-venture-capital"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/technewslit.com\/sciencebusiness\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8978","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/technewslit.com\/sciencebusiness\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/technewslit.com\/sciencebusiness\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/technewslit.com\/sciencebusiness\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/technewslit.com\/sciencebusiness\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8978"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/technewslit.com\/sciencebusiness\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8978\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8980,"href":"https:\/\/technewslit.com\/sciencebusiness\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8978\/revisions\/8980"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/technewslit.com\/sciencebusiness\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8978"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/technewslit.com\/sciencebusiness\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8978"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/technewslit.com\/sciencebusiness\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8978"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}