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Start-up Visterra to get funding from three US venture capitalist funds
A NEW biotech company has been set up here to focus on developing new therapies, vaccines and diagnostic tools for infectious diseases, such as influenza and dengue fever.
Visterra Singapore is the first start-up company to spin off from the Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (Smart) Centre, which was set up here in 2007 in collaboration with the National Research Foundation (NRF).
Smart was set up by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), which is renowned for spinning off research into start-up companies.
Visterra will build off research by the Infectious Disease Interdisciplinary Research Group at Smart, and will receive funding from three top venture capitalist funds from the United States, all of which are investing in Singapore for the first time.
Smart is the first of the five Campus for Research Excellence And Technological Enterprise (Create) centres, a programme by the NRF which brings researchers from top universities around the world to conduct research with local universities.
Dr Francis Yeoh, chief executive of the foundation, said this is a milestone for the Create programme as Visterra is an example of what the NRF wishes to encourage – an entrepreneurial environment that turns research into enterprises.
Dr Yeoh said he was pleased that the first research centre in Create has spun-off a company “funded by top tier venture capitalists” in such a short time.
“This is only the beginning. We expect that more will come from MIT, certainly other programmes, as well as from the other entities from Smart,” he said.
NRF has allocated $1 billion for the Create programme, including a $360 million research facility expected to be completed next year.
Dr Yeoh added that universities invited to participate in the Create programme are also those that have an entrepreneurial mindset.
The other four universities are the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology at Zurich, the Technical University of Munich and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem – specialising in areas such as biotechnology, environmental science, engineering and communication technology.
Professor Ram Sasisekharan, founder of Visterra and principle researcher at Smart, said his company will be a new model for biotech spin-offs in Singapore.
“Our goal is to translate fundamental discoveries about how infectious agents interact with human cells into powerful new therapies, better diagnostics and more effective vaccines.”
He hopes that the company will have significant progress in its research and development by next year.
Mr Edwin M. Kania Jr, managing partner and chairman of Flagship Ventures – which manages US$600 million (S$836 million) in early stage funds – said its investment in Visterra is the first time his company has ventured out of the US.
“We have recognised, increasingly over the last decade, that no longer do the best ideas and the best people reside solely in the US,” said Mr Kania.
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