Scion Life Sciences ("Scion"), an affiliate of Petrichor, recently announced the successful closure of its inaugural fund, which surpassed expectations by securing $310 million in capital commitments. 

Founded and led by Samuel W. Hall, PhD, and Aaron M. Kantoff, alongside Tadd S. Wessel, founder, and Managing Partner of Petrichor, Scion focuses on fostering exceptional biotechnology companies in New York City. Their mission is to establish and nurture firms dedicated to discovering, developing, and commercializing clinically transformative or curative medicines. By providing the necessary capital and operational support, Scion aims to realize the full clinical potential of the therapies developed.

The firm's investment strategy is grounded in experience and backed by rigorous data analysis. Scion selects assets based on three key pillars: mature therapeutic modalities and enabling technologies, a deep scientific understanding of target areas, and a focus on clinical problems suitable for independent biotechnology companies.

"We believe that solving clinically important problems is the fundamental driver of value creation in the life sciences industry and that sustained, long-term support is critical to building companies capable of generating these solutions,” Hall emphasizes. “These convictions determine where we invest our capital and human resources and how we build our portfolio companies."

Scion has assembled a seasoned team across scientific, medical, financial, technological, and operational domains to actively build and refine companies. The firm has already initiated investments in four promising company formation efforts, with plans for further expansion.

To bolster its capabilities, Scion established Scion Innovations, enhancing its in-house R&D capabilities and operational resources. This infrastructure enables informed decision-making and ensures that only programs with exceptional potential progress to full-scale portfolio investments.

Aaron Kantoff stresses the firm's commitment to creating impactful medicines rather than focusing solely on exits. Scion's proactive and data-driven approach aims to generate a concentrated portfolio of ideas poised to deliver real medical breakthroughs.

"We build companies with the primary objective of creating important new medicines, not exits," added Kantoff. "Our proactive and data-driven approach to company building allows us to generate a concentrated portfolio of best ideas, optimized to yield real medicines that change the lives of patients and caregivers. This objective, along with our long-duration fund structure, enables us to build sustainably operating biotechnology companies that are capable of ascending to valuations in the tens of billions as they commercialize clinically transformational new medicines."

"We appreciate the trust of our limited partners that share the Scion team's conviction in the profound economic and societal value creation potential of clinically important new medicines," stated Wessel. "Sam and Aaron have established themselves as exceptional investors and company builders. The outlier success of the companies they have previously built together provides impressive validation of their unique approach. I and the entire Petrichor team are delighted to partner with them in building Scion."