KALAMAZOO ? Mitechnews.Com continues its mini profiles of Michigan Venture Capital companies that can offer entrepreneurs possible funding sources. This profile highlights Apjohn Ventures, a life sciences specialist.

The goal of Apjohn Ventures is to provide superior financial returns to investors by making primarily equity investments in innovative life sciences companies with sustainable and outstanding growth prospects. Apjohn invests in early to mid-stage companies in all aspects of human life sciences ? biopharmceuticals, medical devices & diagnostics, genomic tools/services, and healthcare services. Apjohn?s particular expertise is in biopharma opportunities given its heritage with Upjohn Company.

Apjohn Ventures? primary geographic focus is Michigan and the Midwest. We have and may continue to co-invest in a few deals outside the Midwest with strategic venture capital partners.

The Apjohn Fund hopes to raise from $15-million to $20-million. Today some $10 million is under management. This allows about 8 to12 investments, of which five have been made, to ensure sufficient portfolio diversification, while also protecting the value of its investments by ensuring its ability to equitably participate with co-investors in future financing rounds at several stages in the life cycle of a portfolio company.

The Fund has reviewed more than 200 deals per year and will continue to make two to three investments per year. The approximate size of each investment including follow-on opportunities is expected to range from $250,000 to $1.5 million. The Fund expects to liquidate its investments through initial public offerings or third party acquisitions of portfolio companies.

Apjohn Ventures expects to launch Fund II in the next few years based on the success of the first Apjohn Ventures Fund.

Principals are General Partner Mina Patel Sooch and Donald R. Parfet.

Mina Patel Sooch, MBA

Mina Sooch brings with her over a decade of pharmaceutical and healthcare experiences as an entrepreneur, strategy & finance advisor, and venture capitalist.

Mina has been very active in life sciences dealflow and operations management since early 2001 through her synergistic roles at Apjohn Group (a founding principal) and North Coast Technology Investors (the entrepreneur in residence focused on life sciences deals for the $100 million early stage venture capital firm in Ann Arbor).

In the last two years, she has served as founding CFO of Afmedica and CEO of SenseGene Therapeutics and led the investments in Nephros Therapeutics by NorthCoast VC and Apjohn affiliates. She is a charter board member of the Midwest Healthcare Investment Network and board member of the Michigan Venture Capital Association as well as active on many other local, regional and national life sciences and venture capital organizations.

Prior to 2001, Mina spent eight years as a global account manager at Monitor Group, a top tier global strategy consulting firm based in Boston, with her client base consisting of mid-cap and large-cap healthcare companies and multi-billion dollar private equity companies. With a focus on M&A, she has worked on over 30 deals including $7B Pharmacia & Upjohn merger in 1995 and $1B merger of PharMerica in 1997. Mina was also a founding leader of Monitor?s Corporate Finance practice in 1998 with Tom Copeland.

Mina began her career spending several years in research and product development at Ford Motor Company, Dow Chemical Company, and Proctor and Gamble.

Mina received a MBA from Harvard Business School in 1993. She graduated summa cum laude and commencement speaker from Wayne State University in 1989 with a B.S. in Chemical Engineering.

Donald Parfet, MBA

Don Parfet is experienced and skilled at all aspects of life sciences business launch, management, and exit. Apjohn Group was Don?s vision upon leaving his Senior Vice President position at Pharmacia (after 20+ years) to bring talent and capital together to build world-class biopharmaceutical companies. Prior to forming Apjohn Group, Don?s responsibilities at Pharmacia included all of the Associated Businesses (Animal Health, Diagnostics, Pharmaceutical Commercial Services and Plasma Products.) Don also had overall Site Management responsibilities for the company’s operations in Kalamazoo. He had successfully created a new company through the formation of a joint venture between Amersham and Pharmacia Biotech. He also led a successful $150 million IPO by ?spinning out? 60 percent ownership to the public of Biacore International of Sweden (NASDAQ: BCOR) and served on the Board.

In addition, Don is a trustee of the W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research and Bronson Healthcare Group as well as Chair of the Kalamazoo College Board of Trustees. Don serves as Sponsorship Chair for the Great Lakes Entrepreneurs Quest. He also serves as a Board Member of Southwest Michigan First, a Kalamazoo based non-profit economic development center, MPI Research, a preclinical animal research facility in Mattawan Michigan, and Kelly Services and publicly traded temporary employment service.

Don received his BA degree in economics from the University of Arizona in 1975 and his M.B.A. degree in finance from the University of Michigan in 1977.

Current Investments

Since its inception in May 2003, Apjohn Ventures Fund has invested in 5 promising life sciences companies primarily throughout Michigan, in addition to the midwest and the east coast.

Afmedica (Kalamazoo, MI) – Preclinical stage drug eluting device company focused on improving surgical outcomes such as vascular access for dialysis patients.

Asterand (Detroit, MI) – Revenue stage worldwide tissue bio-bank for pharmaceutical R&D based in new Tech One facilities.

Nephros Therapeutics (Ann Arbor, MI & Providence, RI) – Phase II clinical stage cellular therapy company targeting severe inflammatory diseases such as acute kidney failure.

ProNAi Therapeutics (Kalamazoo, MI) – Preclinical stage cancer therapeutics company focused on prostate and lymphoma cancer based in the Southwest MI Innovation Center.

ZyStor Therapeutics (Milwaukee, WI) – Preclinical stage orphan drug company focused on developing enzyme-replacement therapies

If you have an exciting life sciences business plan, please submit it to Mina Sooch, General Partner of Apjohn Ventures at [email protected]

Or for further information, ApjohnVentures.Com