Goldman Sachs Asset Management closed its $650 million life sciences investment fund Wednesday morning.
The closing of West Street Life Sciences I finished well above its original target and represents one of the largest first-time private life sciences growth funds.
West Street Life Sciences is managed by Goldman Sachs’ Life Sciences Investing Group, which was established in 2021. The division’s goal is to “source differentiated investments” and partner with companies to enhance value creation in the life sciences space.
West Street Life Sciences has committed around $90 million across five portfolio companies focused on life sciences innovation. These industry players include MOMA Therapeutics, Nested Therapeutics, TORL Biotherapeutics, Septerna and Rapport Therapeutics, the latter of which closed a $150 million Series B funding round in August.
Among the growth drivers that the financial institution has identified are precision medicine, genetic medicine, cell therapy, immunotherapy, synthetic biology and artificial intelligence.
Over the past few years, Goldman Sachs has been bullish on opportunities in healthcare as the COVID-19 pandemic dissipates. At its annual healthcare conference last year, the company issued a report highlighting health-related sectors that could overperform expectations following a slow start to 2023.
“We are in a golden-era of innovation in the life sciences, where technological breakthroughs are creating new approaches to diagnosing and treating disease,” Amit Sinha, head of Life Sciences Investing at Goldman Sachs Asset Management, said in a statement. “We believe the current environment provides an attractive opportunity for investing in the next generation of leading life sciences companies. Through our global platform, we seek to be a capital provider of choice and help our companies realize their full potential.”
Following a tepid 18 months of healthcare investing following the boom times of 2021, Goldman Sachs’ announcement marks yet another high mark for financial powerhouses making sizable bets and raising funds to make inroads in the industry.
During the fall, Blackstone entered into a definitive agreement with Amicus Therapeutics on a $430 million financing collaboration. At the time, the investment firm stated it was excited to team with Amicus and bring medicines to rare disease patient populations.
A few months prior, AI-driven drug discovery startup Genesis Therapeutics closed a $200 million Series B financing round co-led by Silicon Valley-based venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz (a16z).
In May, Metaphore Biotech snagged $50 million from Flagship Pioneering while a16z and General Catalyst invested $50 million into Hippocratic AI.
Outside of investment banks and venture capitalists, chip designer Nvidia also made a $50 million investment in Recursion Pharma over the summer.
