ADVERTORIAL FEATURE Baillie G
“ Another game-changer is the increased willingness of venture capitalists and other investors to provide more capital to support earlystage biotech companies ”
Tom Slater Joint manager of the Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust
venture capitalists and other investors to provide more capital to support early-stage biotech companies . He cites the example of Denali , which is seeking a cure for neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer ’ s : “ The traditional model of funding research was to develop a drug and attempt to raise money to get through to the next trial stage . The companies that seem most interesting to us today are raising a lot more money that isn ’ t tied to a specific objective . Denali , for example , now has a billion dollar-plus balance sheet . With that level of investment , it can follow the science . And if the lead drug candidate has problems , say with its safety profile , it promotes the second candidate . “ The whole time it ’ s building its understanding of the problem , which in the case of neurodegeneration is mainly about getting drugs across the blood-brain barrier . This long-term focus leads to much more interesting
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