Venture Capital

A new $66 million VC fund is looking to seed medtech startups

- August 28, 2024 2 MIN READ
WEHI's Dr Anne-Laure Puaux, Dr Roslyn Hendriks and Prof Marnie Blewitt
Victoria’s Walter & Eliza Hall Institute (WEHI) for medical research as built a $66 million venture capital war chest to back medtech startups over the next decade, turning the institute’s work into commercial biotech companies.

The strategic investment fund, 66ten, managed by WEHI Ventures, will back pre-Seed and Seed rounds in the hope of bridging the gap between scientific discoveries and commercial viability in healthcare. The focus is medical research breakthroughs developed at the institute, founded in 1915, which has more than 1000 researchers globally investigating solutions for cancer, infectious and immune diseases, developmental disorders and healthy living.

WEHI Ventures CEO Dr Anne-Laure Puaux said the institute has a strong record of scientific discoveries.

“66ten was established to transform groundbreaking discoveries into innovative commercial programs that can deliver outcomes for patients and financial returns to investors,” she said.

“It is a unique venture fund that occupies its own space within the venture capital landscape in Australia thanks to WEHI’s long-standing contribution to the medical science fields.”

WEHI already knows a bit about financial success from treatment developments, having made around A$400 million in 2017 from the part-sale of royalty rights to an oral therapy for blood cancers.

66ten kicked off a year ago and has already made several investments inked to WEHI-based discoveries.

The projects and startups received investments under different streams, including as co-investments with biotech VC funds.

Dr Puaux said tens of millions of people globally have benefited from WEHI research, with more than 420 clinical trials currently underway involving the discoveries made at the institute.

“66ten is designed to deliver commercial success for WEHI and its stakeholders, with the aim of shortening the timeframe to patients benefitting from WEHI discoveries,” she said.

“Any financial returns generated via portfolio activities will support WEHI research, discoveries and technologies, to continue WEHI’s fulfilment of its research mission and contribute to the institute’s financial sustainability.”

66ten investment review committee chair Dr Roslyn Hendriks said researchers often struggle with the early translational stages of their projects.

“What we are trying to do is to not only offer researchers the financial means to set up projects, but also equip them with the resources and guidance to advance their technologies with commercial potential through the technology readiness levels,” she said.

“In that sense, 66ten also serves as a vehicle through which to attract science-focused minds at the top of their own fields, as well as funding partners who share the same vision as WEHI.”

Among the ideas already backed by 66ten is a potential disease-modifying treatment for the non-inherited genetic condition Prader-Willi Syndrome (PWS), a rare neurodevelopmental disorder that occurs in between 1-in-10,000-to-30,000 people.

Until now, therapeutics have only treated symptoms. They include eating uncontrollably, low muscle mass and tone, gastric complications, impaired cognition, speech difficulties, mental illness and behavioural challenges.

Professor Marnie Blewitt, laboratory head at WEHI, has led the research into treatments and said they analysed around 300,000 chemicals before discovering a protein that could help.

It “was akin to finding a needle in a haystack”, she said.

“The investment from 66ten has injected new momentum into our drug discovery program, and we hope this investment will deliver a therapeutic candidate for 400,000 patients worldwide; one that goes beyond moderating symptoms and fundamentally improves their lives.”