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The fund, run by SL Investment Management, based in Chester, offers fresh hope to the British biotech sector, which has long complained of the lack of finance available in the UK compared with the US.
It aims to provide far earlier stage funding than most existing private equity groups, in the belief that it can build a diversified portfolio of investments sufficient to trigger significant returns.
Sir Richard, the former chairman of GlaxoSmithKline, head of Imperial College and now chairman of the Royal Institution, will head an independent board scrutinising the quality of the investments.
Ian Warwick, the managing partner, said that up to two-thirds of the projects would be based in the UK, with initial investments of $3m-$12m, later increasing to up to $20m-$30m, with the aim of exiting after five to seven years.
He said Deepbridge would identify projects patented by researchers in universities, take equity stakes of 80-90 per cent, incentivise the inventors and provide the management to develop the businesses.
“Our goal is to take products to the proof of relevance stage, not to full commercialisation but to get them to a significant level and pass them on to someone with deeper pockets,” he said.
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