Looking back at 2024 – an excellent year for SV’s Therapeutics Funds
As members of our team gather with the biotech community in San Francisco for the annual JP Morgan Healthcare conference to look to the year ahead, SV is thrilled to provide a snapshot of our 2024 achievements.
Backed by our investors and partners, SV has continued to build and support an exciting trans-Atlantic portfolio of biotech companies. Each is developing innovative therapeutics based on groundbreaking science with the potential to change the treatment paradigm for patients.
2024 saw one of SV’s largest exits
In May 2024, Merck announced that it was to acquire SV-created EyeBio for up to $3bn including $1.3bn upfront.
SV seeded EyeBio in 2021 with SV Venture Partner David Guyer MD (CEO) - returning to create his third SV ophthalmology company - and Tony Adamis MD (CSO). SV led EyeBio’s Series A fundraise in 2022 which reached $130m and was the Company’s largest shareholder, having invested a total of $25m across both SV’s current Biotech funds.
As part of our company creation activities, SV developed EyeBio’s business plan, budget and preclinical plans as well as helping to build a strong leadership team and network of advisors. The SV deal team also helped identify the in-licensed assets having screened >150 potential candidates. Kate Bingham and Mike Ross served on the Company’s Board with Kate as Chair up until the point of exit which provided a valuable vantage point to provide hands-on support to the management team.
The acquisition followed phenomenal early clinical data from EyeBio’s Phase 1a/2b trial which revealed that the Company’s lead asset, Restoret, has the potential to revolutionise the treatment of blindness.
Having delivered one of SV's strongest ever exits, EyeBio continues to make exciting progress and met its first milestone in less than three months after its successful sale to Merck, unlocking an undisclosed payment for investors.
We are thrilled with this fabulous result which is a great example of the huge potential that biotech offers for delivering both financial returns and patient impact.
A year of portfolio growth
In 2024, SV created three new companies including TRIMTECH and a stealth-stage company targeting psychiatric disorders including depression. Having also invested in a further three new companies, SV added a total of six new companies to its Therapeutics portfolio. SV continued to provide valuable hands-on support to its portfolio including participating in the 16 financing rounds raised across the 36 active companies totalling ~$1.5bn.
Collectively, seven companies within the SV Therapeutics portfolio entered into notable collaborations with large pharma companies which equated to >$200m in upfront payments alone. These include SV-created Alchemab's collaboration with Eli Lilly & Co to discover, research and develop novel therapies for ALS, Rondo's collaboration with Lilly to develop novel antibodies for solid tumours SV-created Mestag’s license and research collaboration with MSD to identify novel targets for inflammatory diseases, AviadoBio’s option and license agreement with Astellas for gene therapy AVB-101 and QurAlis' global license agreement with Lilly for QRL-204, a therapy targeting ALS and FTD. These partnerships help drive innovation by providing non-dilutive funding as well as valuable expertise and resources.
SV was excited by the clinical progress seen across its portfolio in 2024. 20 new clinical studies were initiated in the year. This included two SV-created companies, Sitryx and TRexBio which became clinical-stage companies as their respective Lilly-partnered assets progressed into Phase 1 clinical trials. Pulmocide, another SV-created company achieved positive data in its Phase 2 trial for its novel inhaled anti-fungal, opelconazole. Imbria also shared positive clinical data including from its Phase 2 trial, evaluating ninerafaxstat in patients with symptomatic non-obstructive hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. Another example is Transposon which achieved positive data from its Phase 2 study of TPN-101 in patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and/or frontotemporal dementia.
The Therapeutics team grew
SV made some key hires in 2024. Having expanded the partnership to include Jamil M Beg as a Partner on the Biotech funds, Emily Guadiano, Associate also joined the Biotech team and Lennart Spindler, Senior Analyst joined the Dementia team. In terms of promotions, Alex Badamchi-Zadeh was promoted to Vice President following the EyeBio exit in recognition of his contribution to the Company as a key member of the SV deal team.
Already in 2025, Ali Jazayeri has joined us as an Operating Partner bringing over 15 years of operational experience. Freya Easton has been promoted to Senior Associate in the Biotech team, Hannah Maunder to Senior Associate, Investor Relations and Jonathan Mott to Chief Compliance Officer in the UK.
A continued focus on ESG and Impact
Patient impact is a driving force behind all of SV Therapeutics' investment activities. 2024 saw the publication of the second SV Impact and ESG report which details our ongoing progress in this area. The report maps out the critical contribution SV makes to the Knowledge Project, an initiative involving leading life sciences venture firms working towards a single coordinated and specialised ESG data collection tool.
A particular area of focus for SV is diversity, equity and inclusion and we are pleased to share that 90% of our current portfolio have women in C-suite roles and ~40% are led by female CEOs.
Looking Ahead
As ever, SV is poised to invest in and support innovative companies with the potential to change therapeutic paradigms for patients. 2025 is set to be an exciting year for SV with multiple value driving milestones expected to be reached across the portfolio over the next twelve months.
