Camden Partners closes capital fund
Camden Partners Holdings, a Baltimore-based private equity firm co-founded by former mayoral candidate David L. Warnock, announced the final closing of its Nexus fund, which invests in early-stage biomedical technology companies.
The Camden Partners Nexus Fund aims to invest in firms, particularly in Baltimore, that develop drugs, devices, diagnostics and data analytics through federally funded research and development grants, including those with technologies emerging from the divisions at the Johns Hopkins University and the University of Maryland.
Warnock launched the fund in 2016, along with Dr. R. Jacob Vogelstein, George C. Petrocheilos and Davis Oros. It has made six investments so far, including in Sisu Global Health, Ashvattha Therapeutics, Oprheris, eNeura, Cage Pharmaceuticals and Personal Genome Diagnostics.
Petrocheilos said he could not disclose the full amount invested in the fund, but Nexus plans to make 10 investments of between $500,000 and $2.25 million per company.
The funds relies on a senior advisory board of scientists, biotech entrepreneurs and industry leaders to find deals and appraise them for commercial potential.
The board members, who also are Nexus partners, include Adam Riess, a Hopkins astrophysicist and Nobel Prize winner; Dr. Bert Vogelstein, a cancer researcher at Hopkins and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute; Dr. Henry Brem, Hopkins neurosurgeon-in-chief; Dr. Solomon Snyder, a Hopkins neuroscientist who co-founded Nova Pharma and Guilford Pharma; Justin Hanes, a Hopkins researcher in nanotechnology and medicine and a founder of Kala Pharma and GreyBug Vision; Dr. Geoff Ling, a Hopkins neurologist and the former founding director of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency ’s Biomedical Technologies Office; and Tom V. Brooks, the now-retired vice chairman and executive vice president of Constellation Energy Group.
Camden Partners did not identify other investors but said they came from a diversified national base of sophisticated investors and families.