PharmaTelevision - TVM Capital: Investments from Scotland to India

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Video title: TVM Capital: Investments from Scotland to India

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In the last in the series of interviews from the BIA Leadership Summit, Dr Fintan Walton talks to Simon Best, Entrepreneur-in-House at TVM Capital. Simon’s background was in agriculture. He is based in the UK with responsibility for identifying interesting deal flow opportunities in and out of India. Topics discussed include:

• investment in India
• development in the Middle East and China
• Big Pharma’s work in India
• TVM’s risk strategy
• how Par Equity’s business angel syndicate actually works
• the shape of the pharma and biotech industry
• drug discovery, development and regulation

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Simon Best's responsibilties outside UK and investments in India.

Fintan Walton:

Hello and welcome to PharmaVentures business review here at the BIA Leadership Summit in Hertfordshire in the UK. On this show I have Simon Best, who is the Entrepreneur-In-Residence at TVM, TVM is a venture fund, a private equity fund that's based in Germany, but you have a role here in the UK, but your responsibilities are outside the UK largely with the Asia as well as the Middle East?

Simon Best:

Well specifically India is the area I am personally most responsible for. I've had an interest in India for a long time. My original background in biotech was actually in agriculture. And when I got out of the Ag the GM Food world in the late 1990's DFID one of the UK development agency asked me if I would represent the UK on the board over an Ag-Biotech Research Centre in India, in Hyderabad and that gave me you know a regular reason to go to the most interesting parts of India from 1999 onwards. And that allowed me to get to know what was going on in Hyderabad and Bangalore. And then when TVM heard about this after they were investor in my last biotech company they asked me if I'd help them identify interesting deal flow opportunities out in in and out of India both for Europe and then for the Middle East. So that's how it came about.

Fintan Walton:

Right. Very interesting. That role does that reflect the way the industry is going at the moment, that organizations like TVM or funds like TVM are looking beyond the normal biotech industry here in Europe and looking at opportunities overseas where there are growth markets?

Simon Best:

Well yes, there are many dimensions to that, I mean one, one which has been obvious for some time is that India in particular represents an opportunity to outsource many aspects of drug discovery and development at global quality standards I mean there is no longer I think any concerns about quality in India at lower cost and particularly with regard to clinical development and large scale clinical trials the ability to recruit patients into global standard clinical trials very quickly. It's really the speed I think with clinical recruitment in India now does the main stay rather than simply the cost saving.

Fintan Walton:

And so the types of investments that TVM are making are in?

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Simon Best

Entrepreneur-in-house

Professor Best's illustrious international career has been wide-ranging, from the music to bioscience industries. A music graduate from the University of York, his claims to fame include managing the 1979 European Tour of the hit Sheffield band, the Human League, when he also filled in on two of their gigs! Deciding on a career change in 1982, Simon embarked on an MBA at London Business School. In 1998, Simon was headhunted as CEO of Roslin BioMed, the newly-formed commercial arm of the Roslin Institute and developed the business rapidly and facilitated its acquisition in May 1999 by the Geron Corporation. In July 2000, the Medical Research Council's Human Reproductive Sciences Unit in Edinburgh approached Simon to assess the commercial potential of their research for product development. This ultimately led to the formation of Ardana Bioscience. Dr Best is Chair of the Board of the Biotechnology Industry Organization, Bioethics Committee in the US, a member of the Board of Trustees of the International Centre for Research in the Semi-Arid Tropics in India and a special adviser to the World Bank. He actively promotes the benefits of biotechnology and is involved in the teaching of Biotech in the UK. He was Chair of the Bioethics Committee from 1998 - 2005. Simon is currently Entrepreneur-In-Residence at TVM Capital and Chairman of the Advisory Board of PAR Equity. He also received an honorary Professorship in Medicine from the University of Edinburghin August 2008.

TVM Capital

TVM Capital is a global venture and growth capital firm with a 25 year operating track record. From its headquarters in Munich, and office in Boston, TVM have financed more than 250 emerging companies in technology and the life sciences. During the last 15 years, TVM have become increasingly specialized in these two attractive high-growth sectors. TVM's key objective as investors is to enhance company growth by harnessing the power to innovate at all levels technological, strategic, marketing and geographical - incorporating effective international management and securing adequate financial backing.