Pureos Bioventures, a venture capital fund dedicated to support private biotech companies developing novel therapies, announced the appointment of several venture partners to its team. The first-time fund has USD 205 million under management and has invested in 11 private biotech companies so far. In addition, Pureos is a partner at BaseLaunch, an incubator of biotech startups in Basel, Switzerland. First portfolio companies of Pureos Bioventures have already gone public or have been acquired.
As new venture partners Dr. Dragan Grabulovski, Ian Metcalfe and Dr. Roberto Iacone have joined the team as of 1st September. Dragan was CSO and co-founder of Covagen AG, a Swiss biotech company focusing on bispecific antibodies and antibody alternatives. Cilag GmbH International, an affiliate of the Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies of Johnson & Johnson acquired Covagen in 2014. Since 2015 Dragan is an independent advisor to biotech start-ups, coach at the ETH Zurich and Innosuisse (Swiss Innovation Agency), board member and entrepreneur.
Ian joined NovaGo Therapeutics as CEO in 2020. Before NovaGo, Ian worked as Chief Operating Officer for Corlieve Therapeutics, which was acquired by uniQure in July 2021. Prior to that, Ian held positions of increasing responsibility at both Roche and Nestlé, including Investor Relations, business development/M&A, Global Product Strategy, and late stage Pharma Development. Ian’s earlier career involved his own start-up enterprise, playing a key role in Berna Biotech’s R&D group, and raising funds for the Sicilian based start-up Etna Biotech.
Roberto is CEO of Alentis Therapeutics, a physician-scientist (MD PhD) and biotech entrepreneur who has advanced several assets to early clinical development. He has strong translational medicine and strategic experience across rare Diseases, fibrosis, immunology, and oncology. Prior to Alentis, Roberto was part of the leadership team which built Black Diamond Therapeutics from inception through multiple financing rounds and to a NASDAQ IPO. Before that he was heading rare diseases research at Roche.
Managing Partners of Pureos Klaus Breiner, Dominik Escher, and Martin Münchbach stated: “We are very pleased to welcome Dragan, Ian and Roberto as our venture partners. They bring tremendous additional experience of building biotech companies to Pureos, which will help the fund to start up and foster our portfolio companies.”
