Wednesday, September 5, 2018

Westlake Village BioPartners, Led By Amgen Vets, Launches $320M Fund

Westlake Village BioPartners, a brand new venture capital fund focused on the life sciences, said on Wednesday that it has launched a new, $320 investment fund aimed at early stage companies. According to the new venture fund, it was founded by Beth Seidenberg, M.D., general partner at Kleiner Perkins and former chief medical officer and head of global development at Amgen, and Sean Harper, M.D., executive vice president and head of R&D at Amgen. The firm said Harper will move to the firm beginning in January 2019, with current Kleiner Perkins Chief Operating Officer Scott Ryles becoming Chief Operating Officer at Westlake Village BioPartners. The new fund says it is the "first large venture fund of its kind" based in the Los Angeles area, which it says has an emerging cluster of medical innovation and excellence in academic research with a deep talent pool.