New York-based Catalio Capital Management, which was initially headquartered in Baltimore, and T. Rowe Price joined a $168 million Series B round for Odyssey Therapeutics, a biotech firm developing precision medicines to treat cancer. The round, led by Cambridge, Mass.-based General Catalyst, follows a blockbuster $218 million Series A last December.
Other new investors in the Series B round included Fidelity, GreatPoint Ventures, Walleye Capital, Alexandria Venture Investments, SVB Securities’ Healthcare Innovation Investment Fund and other institutional investors. All Series A investors — OrbiMed, SR One, Foresite Capital, Logos Capital, Woodline Partners, HBM Healthcare Investments, Colt Ventures and Creacion Ventures — also participated.
“Odyssey is pioneering next-generation therapeutics by marrying a powerful drug discovery engine, integrating machine learning, biology, and medicinal and structural chemistry, with an exceptional leadership team of proven drug developers,” said Gary D. Glick, founder and CEO of the Cambridge, Mass., firm.
Life Sciences Focus
Catalio Capital was founded in 2020 by George Petrocheilos and R. Jacob Vogelstein — Johns Hopkins alumni who also worked together at Camden Partners — with the goal of investing in pathbreaking life sciences companies. At Camden, Petrocheilos cofounded Camden Nexus, a unit to specialize investments in biomedical tech companies coming out of Johns Hopkins. He has also served at HealthCor and Global Domain Hedge Fund. Petrocheilos is among the board of trustees at Kennedy Krieger Institute, Baltimore School for the Arts and Johns Hopkins Center for Financial Economics.
Vogelstein is an expert on areas such as neural computing, neuromorphic hardware, neuromimetic algorithms and brain-computer interfaces. He designed and ran the Machine Intelligence program at Cortical Networks (MICrONS), as well as the Knowledge
Representation in Neural Systems (KRNS) program. Vogelstein also cofounded a data science company called Gigantum, which was acquired by graphics chip maker Nvidia.
In May, Catalio Capital closed a third fund, Catalio Nexus Fund III, worth $381 million. Catalio’s portfolio investments this year include Fractyl Health, Cartography Biosciences, Xilis, Anagenex, Character Biosciences, Octant Bio, Pheast Therapeutics, Celsius Therapeutics, Affini-T Therapeutics, PrognomiQ, RefleXion Medical, Sherlock Biosciences, Satellite Bio, Septerna and DNA Script.
T. Rowe Price, which has over $1.5 trillion in assets under management, has made over 300 portfolio investments and exited 123. Its portfolio investments this year have predominantly been in life sciences sector and include: Kymera Therapeutics, Cleerly, Deifi Diagnostics, Senti Biosciences, Convoy, Sionna Therapeutics, Tessera Therapeutics, Cross River, SandboxAQ, PrognonIQ, RefleXion, Rigetti Computing, Cellink, Epirus, Endeavor BioMedicines, Eikon Therapeutics, SalioGen Therapeutics and DNA Script.
Cancer Drug Specialist
Odyssey was cofounded by CEO Gary Glick, a serial entrepreneur with deep expertise in cancer drug development, and chief innovation officer David Pompliano, a drug discovery specialist with degrees from Harvard and Stanford universities. The two worked together on postdoctoral research at Harvard.
Commercial Real Estate
MacKenzie Companies
Law
Nemphos Braue
Financial Services / Investment Firms
Chesapeake Corporate Advisors
Commercial Real Estate
Monday Properties
Venture Capital
Blue Delta Capital Partners
Internet / Technology
Foxtrot Media
Prior to Odyssey, Glick founded four startups — Scorpion Therapeutics, Lycera (acquired by Celgene), IFM Therapeutics (units of which were acquired by Bristol Myers Squibb and Novartis) and First Wave Bio (acquired by AzurRx BioPharma).
The key to success, Glick has said, is people. “It’s a recipe for success that’s worked across all my companies,” he once said. At Odyssey, Glick has assembled talent from some of the largest and most successful drug companies. In addition, he has brought early and sharp focus on data science. A third of Odyssey’s early hires are data scientists, led by chief data officer Joe McDonald, who led machine learning and other advanced data technologies at Celgene and Bristol Myers Squibb.
Odyssey is pursuing eight active drug discovery programs, with initial focus on small molecule and protein therapeutics but ultimately the “lifeblood” of the company will be novel targets, according to Glick. Glick expects first clinical trials in late 2023 or early 2024.
