Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) is one of Silicon Valley's best-known venture capital firms, supporting many large technology innovators since its founding in 2009. It is an investment institution that "empowers the future with technology", focusing on the cross-border between technology and other fields for many years, and is committed to using technology to create a better future.
Earlier this year, Ben Horowitz, co-founder and general partner of Andreessen Horowitz, said in a blog post: "In the new year, Andreessen Horowitz raised $9 billion, including $1.5 billion in biological funds, $5 billion in growth funds and $2.5 billion in venture capital, and promised to issue checks for at least $25,000, as large as hundreds of millions of dollars, in the future. to support start-ups in technological innovation".
Recently, a number of investors from Andreessen Horowitz published an article on their official website, in which they pointed out that Andreessen Horowitz has set up a fund called "a16z Bio + Health" to highlight its growing focus on the healthcare and life sciences industry, and to demonstrate its belief that biology (life sciences) and health (medical services) are necessary pillars for lasting innovation in the field. The investment house also believes that some of the most important companies may emerge at the intersection of biology and health in the coming decades.
Figure | a16z Bio + Health investment layout (Source: Andreessen Horowitz website)
Healthcare and life sciences were originally separate industries, and today, as payment patterns shift and treatments become more complex, the lines between them are blurring. In this article, Andreessen Horowitz summarizes seven trends in the bio (life sciences) and health (health services) sectors, namely machine learning and artificial intelligence, programmable drugs, secondary innovations in traditional medicines, synthetic biology (biology) and V1VBC, consumer-facing health insurance, and digital health technologies (health).
Machine learning and artificial intelligence
Since the inception of a16z Bio+ Health, the investment house expects the role of large-scale data, machine learning and engineering in disease diagnosis and drug development to grow significantly.
Some "traditional" biopharma companies are strengthening the number and expertise of their in-house data science teams, or forging partnerships with biotech companies that can bring computing and machine learning expertise. For example, in the investment in the final quarter of 2021, Sanofi partnered with Owkin to analyze clinical data; Genentech partnered with Recursion to find innovative targets; and Astellas and Dyno worked together to optimize the delivery of AAV vectors using machine learning methods.
In addition, the agency has invested in companies that predict the properties of small molecules (such as Genesis Therapeutics), engineer protein therapies including antibodies (such as BigHat Bio), discover new drug targets by mining large-scale data sets (such as Insitro), and analyze human genomic cohort data to develop drug candidates to overcome aging diseases (such as BioAge). Train machine learning models to detect the presence of cancer early through blood biomarkers (e.g., Freenome), understand disease-related single-cell RNA signatures, identify regulatory sequences that drive cell type-specific gene expression, and understand the characteristics of cells under the microscope to reveal the biological characteristics of patients (e.g., DeepCell, BioDock), etc.
Programmable drugs
In 2021, several new landmark drugs were approved, including gene drugs, cell therapies, RNAi therapies, and mRNA vaccines. The FDA approved inclisiran (Novartis' PCSK9 siRNA drug) for the treatment of hyperlipidemia; Intellia and Regeneron reported data from their early PH1 clinical trials for gene editing therapy in atTR amyloidosis; and approved a variety of CAR-T cell products for lymphoma and multiple myeloma.
The investment agency also supports a group of ambitious biotech companies: CAR-T therapies for solid tumors (e.g., Tmunity); in vivo CRISPR systems designed to improve activity, safety, and deliverability (e.g., Scribe Therapeutics); new RNA-based therapies (e.g., CAMP4 Therapeutics); and allogeneic, off-the-shelf iPSC-derived cell therapies (e.g., GC). Therapeutics); and genetic tools that trigger "synthetic biopsies" and early detection of cancer (e.g., Earli).
There are also investments in the intersection of cell and gene therapy, including AAV capsids designed by machine learning for multiple tissue deliveries (e.g., Dyno), computer-aided for industry-wide use, scalable manufacturing infrastructure (e.g., Asimov), and tools for nucleic acid synthesis and analysis (e.g., Elegen).
Secondary innovations in traditional medicine
Despite the large amount of biotech financing to support new models, the reality is that the vast majority of new drug approvals today still fall into the so-called "traditional" small molecule and antibody drug category. Of the 61 innovative therapies approved by CDER and CBER in the United States in 2021, 41 are still in the traditional therapy type. This reflects the biopharmaceutical community's deep expertise and extensive manufacturing experience in developing traditional medicines, while patients have relatively easy access to these drugs.
The agency believes that new forms open up new opportunities for traditional medicines, and its predictions also invest in second innovations in the field of small molecules and antibodies – enabled by companies developing next-generation tools (such as DNA-coding compound libraries) (such as ROME Therapeutics); advancing computational chemistry methods, among others.
Synthetic Biology
The growing focus on ESG (environmental, social and governance) is further pushing large companies and governments to seek out startups for sustainable product development. In addition to therapeutic drugs, bioengineering and synthetic biology ("synbio") are also involved in areas such as food, fabrics, materials and personal care products. The agency predicts that in the coming years synbio will focus on products that enable new performance characteristics that are less expensive, more ethical and more sustainable to manufacture than existing products, such as plant cheese (e.g. Nobell).
Health: V1VBC, consumer-facing health insurance, digital health technology
In the health space, this article addresses three trends, the first being V1VBC, which is the provision of virtual-first, value-based care. Telemedicine, for example, is evolving from primarily urgent care-oriented and highly mimetic transactions to serving primary care and chronic diseases. During the pandemic, many healthcare companies expanded their comprehensive capabilities to serve patients virtually and face-to-face, introducing models of care tailored to specific patients, such as obstetric care (e.g., Pomelo Care) and cancer care (e.g., Thyme Care).
The article also mentions two other directions of health care, one is the health insurance health care service that directly faces consumers, and the other is to apply more digital technology to create more new dimensions of health care services. In the insurance and medical payment space, including vertically integrated "payvider" models (such as Devoted Health), there are also enterprises with purpose-built care delivery and navigation models (such as Patina), and now there are similar payment providers and healthcare platforms rooted in the next logical payer segment – namely traditional Medicare (e.g., Pearl Health), Medicaid (e.g., Waymark), and commercial (e.g., for example). Firefly Health）。 The explosion in digital health is also driving the rapid demand for commoditized shared services, such as network management of patient information (e.g., Ribbon).
At the end of the article, the authors also argue that the fields of biology and health care are becoming increasingly industrialized, and the world is in dire need of more scalable, sustainable and effective ways to help people live healthier lives without creating a financial burden.
In the future, the use of science and technology to empower biology and health will be a new development direction for biotechnology companies, making it more convenient for patients from medical treatment to disease diagnosis, treatment and disease management, and making it easier for patients to access health care and more affordable health care.
Resources:
https://a16z.com/2022/01/07/9b-to-build-the-future/
https://siliconangle.com/2022/01/07/andreessen-horowitz-raises-9b-three-new-funds/
https://future.a16z.com/trends-driving-future-bio-healthcare/
https://a16z.com/2022/01/10/new-year-new-fund-new-opportunities-in-bio-health
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【Past】
"Illumina" in the field of organ chips 丨 large-scale application丨 Expert interpretation
Interview 丨Jiekai Bio丨 Unlock exosome purification chromatography system
Micro-structure workshop 丨 A round of financing of 250 million yuan丨 proposed to build a production base of 10,000 tons
Interview 丨M20 Genomics 丨 "Refuse to be an imitation follower"
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