Approach
We seek to solve clinically important problems.
Everything else is secondary.
Investment Strategy
We believe that solving clinically important problems is the fundamental driver of value creation in the life sciences industry. This conviction informs every aspect of Scion’s strategy and determines where we invest our capital and human resources and how we build our portfolio companies. We build companies with the objective of creating important new medicines, not exits.
Our approach is supported by historical industry data and actualized through disciplined and scalable capital deployment. We’ve developed an asset selection strategy built on three investment pillars to mitigate risk and increase the probability of developing transformational medicines for patients.
Mature Modality
Mature Modality
Well-Understood Biology & Pathophysiology
Well-Understood Biology & Pathophysiology
Standalone Viability
Standalone Viability
How We Build
We apply these principles rigorously but flexibly and build our portfolio companies with discipline and uncompromising intellectual honesty at every stage. We approach each incubation or company build with a focus on understanding the key questions and risks that define its potential and pursue the “killer” experiments required to confront and address these questions upfront. But we do so with patience and with the understanding that translation of clinically important advances does not always proceed in a straight line devoid of bumps.
Once we have achieved conviction, we build with determination and can continue to invest in the companies and innovations we believe in from seed stage through to IPO and beyond. We are structured to enable investments as small as a few thousand dollars in speculative incubation efforts but to cumulatively deploy $60M or more over the life of each portfolio company investment, often remaining among our companies’ largest investors deep into maturity. We want to syndicate with the right partners and can do so early, but we are not afraid to build alone.
Internal Innovation
Internal Innovation
Academia
Academia
Industry
Industry
We approach therapeutic innovation from first principles and have little regard for what is popular this month or this year. Our objective is to create medicines that make a difference, not to build companies that play into acquirors’ shopping lists of the moment for that reason alone. We are proactive and think carefully about which domains are ripe for impactful therapeutic intervention and which remain insufficiently understood. We often consider and dwell in a given disease or therapeutic area for months or years before we determine the right way to intervene, or whether to intervene at all. We seek to identify the most compelling means of addressing each clinical challenge we explore and are determined to build our companies around the right therapeutic innovations, regardless of their source.