Monday, October 15, 2007

Rising Polaris star backs new startup

By Ryan McBride

Polaris Venture Partners is making a bet on a biotechnology startup and has put it in the hands of one of its rising stars: Amir Nashat.

Nashat, who was named a general partner at the Waltham-based venture capital firm earlier this year, is acting president of the biomaterials startup, which is cloaked in secrecy but boasts big-name board members such as renowned MIT professor Robert Langer.

While no one is revealing details about the biomaterials under development at the Cambridge startup, called Andora Inc., public records show the company closed a $4 million first round of venture financing last month -- within a week of a portfolio-company sale worth $415 million that Nashat helped deliver for Polaris.

"(Nashat) is brilliant -- even by MIT standards," said Langer, who advised Nashat during his doctoral work in chemical engineering at MIT. Langer -- who has already attained rock-star status in the biotech sector for his many biomedical inventions -- has now worked with Nashat on several ventures.

Nashat, who joined Polaris in 2002 and was named a partner in April, was also the founding president of Cambridge biotech Pervasis Therapeutics Inc., which develops cell-based treatments to regenerate injured blood vessels. He now serves with Langer on the board of directors of Pervasis.

Nashat, as well as other Andora board members and interested parties, declined requests to speak in detail about the company or its technology.

Earlier this year, Nashat, who is in his mid-30s, led Polaris' investment in an early-stage company Langer recently co-founded called Bind Biosciences Inc., a Cambridge startup advancing nanoparticles to deliver treatments for cancer. And Nashat was on the board of directors of Polaris-backed Adnexus Therapeutics Inc. of Waltham when it revealed plans in late September to be acquired by New York-based drug giant Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. for $415 million.

At his latest venture, Andora, Nashat has an opportunity to add to the luster of his resume in the venture capital arena. He has stacked his board with experts in health care and early-stage investing.

In addition to Langer, Andora's board boasts another noteworthy director of Pervasis, Peter Hutt, a senior attorney at Washington, D.C., law firm Covington & Burling LLP and former senior counsel of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The startup's roster of directors also includes Jonathan Flint, a managing partner at Polaris who, unlike his fellow board members at Andora, has focused more on information technology, digital media and consumer products companies.

Other stakeholders in Andora also have experience with consumer products, particularly related to dermatology. R. Rox Anderson, a professor of dermatology at Harvard Medical School, is listed in public records as an owner of Andora. He is also the lead scientific adviser of a New Jersey-based maker of removable tattoo ink, Freedom-2 Inc.

Lynn Emmolo, another Andora stockholder with a consumer products background, is a former vice president of global cosmetics company Avon Products Inc., based in New York. She is also the former executive vice president and general manager of a defunct skin-care company called Aura Science.