Former Mitsui VCs launch $150m biopharma fund
Two former venture investors from Japanese trading company Mitsui & Co are looking to raise $150 million for a new fund focusing on the biopharmaceutical sector.
According to a regulatory filing, the new fund will call be Remiges Biopharma and will be headed by Taro Inaba, former general manager of Mitsui's healthcare and clean-tech investment department, and Walter Olesiak, who used to an investment partner with the same firm.
Inaba is understood to have left Mitsui in May while Olesiak is currently listed as a managing director at Connectis Ventures, having departed Mitsui in 2012.
Inaba and Olesiak were behind some of Mitsui's most notable investments in the biopharma space including Boston Biomedical, a developer of stem cell-based cancer therapeutics, which was sold to Japan's Dainippon Sumitomo Pharma in 2012 for around $2.6 billion.
Mitsui, as one of Japan's largest conglomerates, has a long record of VC investment in Asia and the US. It currently makes VC investments out of its subsidiary, Mitsui Global Investment, which grew out of Mitsui & Co. Venture Partners. Target sectors include IT, healthcare, retail and cleantech.
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