Atlas Venture, an early-stage venture capital firm that invests in technology and life sciences companies, has entered into Corporate Strategic Partnership (CSP) agreements with both Amgen, through its venture capital fund, Amgen Ventures, and Novartis. The CSP agreements are in conjunction with the closing of Atlas IX in which Amgen Ventures and Novartis are new limited partners. 

The intent of these relationships is to provide Amgen and Novartis with strategic proximity to Atlas Venture's startup formation activities around innovative, potentially high impact medicines, and catalyze future collaborations around translational research across Atlas Venture's early stage portfolio. Amgen and Novartis bring their deep knowledge in pharmaceutical R&D with Atlas Venture's focus on creating and building new biomedical startups with experienced entrepreneurs. 

These CSP relationships are further momentum around the increasingly collaborative early stage biotech ecosystem, bringing venture and pharma interests together.  Atlas Venture intends to explore a range of new opportunities with Amgen and Novartis including co-creation of life sciences startups, formation of asset-centric development projects, and helping translate discoveries from ongoing academic collaborations, among others.

"This partnership will enable us to help some of the best and the brightest academic scientists and biotech entrepreneurs get their ideas off the ground," said Mark C. Fishman, president of Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research (NIBR). "We look forward to working with the Atlas team to build young start-ups that will hopefully one day lead to the development of new medicines for patients in need."

The agreements do not constitute exclusivity or any commitment of Amgen or Novartis to pursue opportunities. Atlas Venture maintains full authority over funding strategy and investment decisions.  This "open market" principle is an important element of these CSP relationships, which are designed to facilitate the partners exploring opportunities of mutual strategic interest.  Atlas IX is expected to create and/or fund more than 15 new biotech companies, and we anticipate these new CSP relationships will be integral part of facilitating their launch and progression.