Allied Minds, Bristol-Myers Squibb Form Life Science Venture

(Bristol-Myers Squibb)

4 August 2014. Allied Minds, a research commercialization company in Boston, and the pharmaceutical company Bristol-Myers Squibb in New York are starting a joint venture to discover new drug candidates and enterprises from promising life science research in U.S. university labs. Financial terms of the new venture, named Allied-Bristol Life Sciences LLC, were not disclosed.

Allied Minds acts as a holding company for science and technology-based start-ups in the U.S. The company forms new businesses based on research conducted in the U.S. at university and federally sponsored labs. Allied Minds then provides funding and management for the new enterprises through their initial stages. The company says it has relationships with 33 universities and 32 labs and research centers affiliated with the U.S. defense and energy departments.

Under the deal, Allied-Bristol Life Sciences will identify research discoveries at university labs with commercial potential, and form start-ups to develop those discoveries from early feasibility stages to preclinical therapy candidates. The joint venture will also provide capital for these initial stages. Once a discovery reaches drug candidate status, Bristol-Myers Squibb will have the option to acquire the enterprise, under agreed-upon terms, which were not disclosed.

In June 2013, Allied Minds reported raising $100 million for its next series of start-ups from discoveries in university and federal research labs. The company also has two subsidiaries similar to Allied-Bristol Life Sciences for the identification and development of new medical devices, and to commercialize discoveries in labs supported by U.S. government agencies. It currently supports 18 enterprises in the U.S.

Bristol-Myers Squibb says it will make available its drug discovery expertise to the university researchers. “We believe this new venture will enhance the translation of early-stage academic research,” says Carl Decicco who heads drug discovery at Bristol-Myer Squibb in a statement by the companies, “and will ultimately help advance important potential new medicines more efficiently.”

This venture is not Bristol-Myers Squibb’s first collaboration with academic research labs. In May 2012, the company established a network with 10 universities and research institutes in the U.S. and Europe to investigate opportunities in cancer immunotherapy.

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