Menlo Park, California-based Frazier Healthcare Partners has closed on a $262 investment fund that it plans to use to back biomedical companies developing new therapeutics products.
The fund, Frazier Life Sciences VIII, is the first investment pool geared specifically towards life sciences run by Frazier, which traditionally invests in various healthcare businesses.
According to Frazier, investments will support drug development from early stages of development to those already in late-stage clinical trials.
[Also: Pfizer in talks to buy Allergan, create pharmaceuticals giant]
Frazier already invests in companies Calistoga Pharmaceuticals and Incline Therapeutics, which its backing helped create.
"Our ability to consistently and successfully execute our investment strategy with the same core investment team over multiple funds allowed us to raise this fund quickly," said Jamie Topper, managing general partner at Frazier, in a statement.
In an interview with Techcrunch, Topper said his fund has help spur more activity in the life sciences sector, whose growth has slowed down in recent years.
"The biggest issue for life sciences investors is that we have to improve healthcare and develop new drugs at lower cost," he told the publication. "We don't need another drug where there are three other examples and we're just going to jack up the price. Also, reimbursement and access to novel therapies receive more scrutiny in the past. So we look for teams that are innovative; companies that addressing a true, unmet need – not just because we think we can sell it but to ensure that regulators and reimbursers will agree with the companies; and we look for opportunities where we can see certain inflection points met within three to five years."
Twitter: @HenryPowderly