Supporting Innovations in Healthcare

As good as an idea might be, building a successful business around it often requires a substantial amount of funding and resources, especially in a capital-intensive industry like the life sciences.

This is where venture capital (VC) firms can provide a helping hand to startups. By investing in the company, VCs can help the founders get their business off the ground, validate their science, and conduct initial proof-of-concept studies.

Although the biotech sector is experiencing an uptick in early-stage VC investments, this hasn’t always been the case. Some time ago, only a handful of VCs were interested in funding life sciences and biotech companies due to the inherent high risks of the industry. Among those early investors was Perceptive Advisors.

Perceptive Advisors LLC, also known as the Perceptive Xontogeny Venture Fund, is a venture capital firm that finances public equity markets across the globe. It was founded in 1999 by Joseph Edelman, the Chief Executive Officer and Portfolio Manager of the company. Its headquarters is located at 51 Astor Place, New York, United States.

Perceptive Advisors’ members include several MDs and PhDs with years of knowledge and experience, giving it an edge over other hedge fund firms. The venture focuses on supporting the progress of life sciences companies and identifies the most promising innovations in modern healthcare, providing financial support to transform them from ideas to products.

In 2019, Perceptive Advisors teamed up with Xontogeny, founded by Chris Garabedian (Portfolio Manager at Perceptive and Chairman and CEO of Xontogeany), to invest in early-stage companies through proof-of-concept with a PXV Fund.

In the year 2020, the company stood tall and made news headlines after closing a $1.1 billion credit fund for life sciences investments. Today, the company has made around $9.5 billion in assets under management (AUM).

Perceptive Advisors’ Investing Strategies

Life Sciences

For over 18 years, Perceptive Advisors has been investing in public and private companies that are either small capitalization or multinational large-capitalization companies.

Perceptive Advisors helps the companies throughout their lifecycle, from crossover rounds, leading IPOs, to public follow-on financings.

They invest in companies working in the following healthcare areas:

• Biotechnology
  
• Pharmaceuticals
  
• Diagnostics
  
• Digital Health
  
• Medical Devices
  

Credit Opportunities

Perceptive Advisors launched its Credit Opportunities Fund in 2013. It provides flexible capital solutions for companies in the fields of biopharma, medical devices, diagnostics, life sciences research, and healthcare information technology (with an emphasis on investing minimally-dilutive capital across all stages and subsectors).

Currently, it manages approximately $2 billion of capital dedicated to private credit and provides customized debt financing solutions to innovative healthcare companies. It enables them to create and build value through funding incremental R&D, acquisitions, and commercial scale-up.

Their investment strategy meets the following tenets:

• Seeks to invest $15 – $200m per investment.
  
• Seeks strong management teams with clear goals.
  
• Invests in both private and public companies worldwide.
  
• Provides debt as less dilutive growth capital.

Perceptive Advisors Companies & Investments

Perceptive Advisors invests in small to large-capitalization healthcare companies working on innovative and transforming ideas. It uses data-driven evaluation to approach every step of the development of new therapeutics, devices, or diagnostics with confidence.

Below are just a few of the companies that Perceptive Advisors are invested in:

• Kindbody offers gynecology, fertility, and family-building care in modern, tech-enabled clinics to support women at every step of their fertility journey.
  
• Xontogeny collaborates with entrepreneurs, scientific founders, and first-time CEOs to drive the successful development of technologies. It helps companies to enable new treatment options for patients with serious diseases.
  
• Beta Bionics is a MedTech company dedicated to the community of people with or affected by diabetes or other conditions of glycemic dysregulation. ‍
• VBI Vaccines is a biotechnology company developing a pipeline of vaccine and immunotherapeutic candidates to power the human immune system to prevent and fight diseases. ‍
• LYRA Therapeutics is a clinical-stage company developing a new therapeutic approach to treat chronic ear, nose, and throat (ENT) diseases.
  

• Kodiak is a biopharma company committed to researching, developing, and commercializing transformative therapeutics to treat age-related macular degeneration and diabetic eye diseases to restore lost vision.
  
• Landos Biopharma is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on the discovery and development of first-in-class oral therapeutics for patients with autoimmune diseases, such as inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), Crohn’s disease (CD), and ulcerative colitis (UC).
  
• Crinetics Pharmaceuticals is a pharma company dedicated to discovering and developing novel therapeutics for the treatment of rare endocrine disorders and endocrine-related cancers.
  
• Relay Therapeutics is focused on advancing a pipeline of promising therapeutic candidates, starting from precision oncology, using its cutting-edge experimental and computational approaches. Its advanced approach allows them to leverage the relationship between protein motion and function to develop innovative therapies.‍
• Invitae provides medical-grade genetic testing to test for any potential diseases at the gene level.‍
• DNAnexus is the world’s most secure, trusted cloud platform and global network for scientific collaboration and accelerated discovery. ‍
• AccuVein is a leader in medical imaging solutions. Its vein viewing system is the world’s first handheld, non-contact vein illumination solution to improve venipuncture and other vascular access procedures.‍
• Aegea Medical provides Mara™ Water Vapor Ablation Systems, a safe and effective in-office treatment for heavy menstrual bleeding.  ‍
• Establishment Labs Holdings, Inc. is a women’s health company that designs, develops, manufactures, and markets an innovative product portfolio comprising advanced silicone-filled breast and body shaping implants.‍
• Counsyl (Myriad Women’s Health) is a women’s health company dedicated to developing simple genetic screening tests, producing results in easy-to-understand language to make information about people’s health within their reach.

Accelerate Your Lab & Extend Your Cash Runway with Excedr

Perceptive Advisors LLC is a venture capital firm investing in life sciences, biotech, and pharma companies across the globe. It funds the creation of innovative healthcare products and helps companies throughout the complete lifecycle, from idea to distribution. It looks beyond the size of the company and invests in the transformative vision of the founders.

When a company or lab receives funding, it’s distributed at many levels—from outfitting labs with required materials and facilities to hiring the required personnel, and even earning required accreditations. With all of the costs of running a life sciences company, it’s easy to run out of funding fast.

To help you wisely spend your latest funding round, whether it be seed, Series A, B, or C, consider leasing your equipment. Doing so will allow you to:

• Avoid large upfront costs typical of purchasing
• Significantly extend your cash runway
• Conserve equity for other priorities that aren’t depreciating assets
• Acquire new equipment without disrupting cash flow or diluting ownership
• Manage cash flow with predictable payments and lower rates.
  

We can help you procure all your high-quality lab equipment without the high upfront costs, saving you money and keeping depreciating assets off of your balance sheets.