ENVISAGE and The Wistar Institute forge new venture and value creation partnership

The Wistar Institute, an international leader in biomedical research, and ENVISAGE L.L.C, a prodigious life sciences venture creation and management firm, are pleased to announce a powerful partnership that leverages Wistar's innovative, high-impact science and ENVISAGE's expertise in managing immunology-infectious disease centered ventures.

"Our unique partnership emanates from pure synergy and collective desire to accelerate the advancement of Wistar's pipeline of value-added, early-stage assets beyond the typical academic technology transfer offering—we are taking active steps to further de-risk our portfolio while ensuring a higher likelihood of success for each and every one of our start-ups founded on Wistar Science," said Heather A. Steinman, Ph.D., M.B.A., The Wistar Institute Vice President for Business Development and Executive Director, Technology Transfer. "We know that our partners will only invest in start-ups with a strong management team in place, and ENVISAGE epitomizes that core capability—that glue. Together, we are the ideal model that can efficiently translate academic discoveries into value-added products that cater to the many unmet patient needs."

Partnering to build successful ventures is the ultimate goal of academia and industry partners alike. The traditional academic venture creation model revolves around identifying a university technology that could become a venture and then finding a management team to advance the venture forward. With this partnership, both ENVISAGE and Wistar aim to streamline this process by combining Wistar's ability to deliver cutting-edge, early-stage assets with ENVISAGE's management expertise (a relationship that is essential to driving early stage ventures towards an inflection point that exceeds both investor and partner expectations).

"We have established a team-driven relationship with Wistar whereby we are not just commercializing, we are becoming operationally involved with each venture," said Vik Subbu, Managing Partner of ENVISAGE L.L.C. "Immunology is our core area of interest and is a strategic fit with Wistar's strength and capabilities. When you combine this vision with Heather's entrepreneurial spirit, you've got a unique public-private model that bridges the translational gap between academic discovery and clinical development."

"As a leading NCI-designated cancer center, our scientific efforts are often focused on finding new solutions for treating cancer," said Dario C. Altieri, M.D., CEO of The Wistar Institute, Director of Wistar's Cancer Center, and the Robert and Penny Fox Distinguished Professor. "We are pleased to be teaming up with ENVISAGE in the immunology-infectious disease space, an important pillar of Wistar Science that we are expanding over the next several years."

Provided by The Wistar Institute