PureTech Ventures
PureTech Ventures is a venture creation company that focuses on healthcare, located in Boston, Massachusetts.
Company overview
PureTech was founded by Daphne Zohar, John Zabriskie, and Robert Langer. Mark Ratner described PureTech in Nature Biotechnology as a firm that searches for "opportunity in forming companies around early-stage assets" while profiling the firm's founder in the publication. Inc. Magazine has described it as "an 'institutional founder,' which means it conceptualizes, incubates and founds companies". Management at the firm includes senior partner John LaMattina, former president of Pfizer Global Research and Development, And Co-founder Bennett Shapiro, former executive vice president of worldwide licensing and external research at Merck. David R. Elmaleh is another advisor and cofounder.
Foundations and investments
In 2008 PureTech founded Enlight Biosciences in conjunction with Pfizer, Merck and Eli Lilly, to help academic laboratories and accelerate [...] discovery. Turna Ray wrote in Genome Web that the company received $39 million to pursue research in pharmacogenomics and related fields including [...] discovery, chemistry, and synthesis platforms. She wrote that the firm helps "academic institutions turn healthcare research into clinical treatments". In 2011 Enlight took on additional partners, including AstraZeneca and Novo Nordisk. PureTech also co-founded the company Vedanta Biosciences, which develops treatment for autoimmune and inflammatory diseases. In 2011 PureTech helped found Tal Medical, which focused on new methods of treating depression.
PureTech has also founded Follica, Gelesis, an obesity treatment company that researches non-invasive ways of slowing stomach emptying and digestion, and Akili, an ADHD treatment software. Scott Kirsner of the Boston Globe wrote of Akili that, "Akili is pretty different from the typical PureTech project: the start-up has brought on board veterans of Lucas Digital Arts and Electronic Arts who have worked on games like Star Wars: The Force Unleashed and Medal of Honor." Other companies founded have included Knode, an offshoot of Enlight that connects pharmaceutical industry executives and experts in order to encourage new collaborations via a web-based platform; and Entrega, another offshoot of Enlight that develops new methods of oral [...] delivery. In 2012 PureTech launched Appeering, a website that assembles disparate Twitter postings into curated lists highlighting trends and important responses. This is a part of a recent move to open software companies in addition to pharmaceutical companies, such as Akili and Knode.