Character Biosciences (formerly Clover Therapeutics)
I am beyond proud to see Character Biosciences (formerly Clover Therapeutics) land a significant milestone round of $18mm, with Clover continuing our journey as a core shareholder.
The funding will position Character to further develop its first two preclinical drug programs, validate its patient subtyping strategies, and expand its in-house pipeline based on proprietary drug target insights. The financing will also enable the team to advance novel experimental approaches to screen and validate its drugs/diagnostics in a preclinical setting that reflects the true heterogeneous patient population.
But — what I’m most proud of is how Cheng Zhang (co-founder/CEO), and the entire team got to this point. I was introduced to Cheng in early 2017 — with the following note from a friend of Clover: “Cheng is awesome. Seriously. He oversaw the hiring of almost 1000 people in his 5 years at Pfizer, plus was promoted every year for 5 years in a row (any string of promotions beyond 3 years was a first). Plus, super humble and a genuine good guy.”
Clover was only a few years old at that point, and yet we had a vision of (over time) making a long-term impact in the life sciences space given the longitudinal data set we were building. As part of our mission to improve every life, we wanted to build a life sciences company from the ground up, focused on diseases of aging, but at the same time minimize risk and distraction — it seemed somewhat of an impossible task.
When I finally got the opportunity to meet Cheng (on a Thursday in 2017), I was informed immediately prior to that meeting that he had an outstanding offer that expired at another company (well known life sciences organization) on the following Monday. Cheng incredibly impressed me in my first and only phone call before hiring him. Once we talked about the vision, and his background, we got into the meat of it. He asked me how much in resources he would be allotted — I said, “zero”. He asked if he would be allowed to bring anyone from within Clover to help him — I said, “no.” He then asked what he would get. I said, “I’ll meet with you for an hour weekly, but basically just be a sounding board. You’ve got six months to see if we can build something or not. If not, I will have to let you go.” He said, “Let me think about it.” I said, “We’re a yes if you’re a yes.”
He thought about it, and then he let me know the next day that he was “in”. He got on a flight that weekend from China and arrived in the US, and he was off to the races on Monday. I wasn’t sure if Cheng was going to be successful with this initiative or not; it was just too crazy of a vision to assume any material probability of success — but I was 1000% positive Cheng would refuse to give up and would run through any wall to make this vision come alive. His passion has been unwavering from day 1.
I was deeply impressed — not just with his intellect and experience, but how naturally we connected on a shared vision. The arrival of Marcel van der Brug (co-founder/CSO) and Erik Karrer (VP, drug discovery) further crystalised the vision and provided the scientific leadership needed to execute on the path.
Cheng, Marcel, and Erik have worked tirelessly to make that vision a reality and their passion has been unwavering from day 1.
Five years later, to see the exceptional team they have built, and to have dramatically increased the probability of bringing an initial set of therapeutics to market to transform the way we treat AMD, Glaucoma, and hopefully many other diseases of aging is nothing short of inspiring.
I cannot wait to see what they accomplish over the next many years.
Vivek
