TaihoVentures

A subsidiary of Taiho Pharmaceutical

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INVESTMENT

How we read a deck.

The legacy criteria, written so a founder can read them in five minutes and tell whether to send the deck.

We are focused on four investment opportunities: drug discovery in first-in-class or new biology, innovative platform technologies, spin-outs from the Taiho pipeline, and medical device / diagnostics / digital health when paired tightly to a therapeutic asset.

INVESTMENT SECTORS

Where we put the check.

Four sectors from the legacy investment criteria, kept as-is. The first three account for most of the check writing; the fourth is opportunistic.

  • Drug discovery — first-in-class or new biology

    Small molecules, biologics, and protein-degrader programs working on targets that pharma has not solved yet. Anavo, Halda, Magnet Biomedicine all entered here.

  • Innovative platform technologies for drug discovery

    RIPTAC, RNA, induced proximity, AI-led chemistry, undruggable-target screening. We back the platform when the first program coming off it is something we would have funded on its own.

  • Spin-out opportunities from Taiho pipelines

    Programs Taiho Pharmaceutical has stewarded inside its R&D walls and is ready to externalize, alone or with a co-founder. Less common than the other three; usually the highest-conviction.

  • Medical device, diagnostics, digital health (opportunistic)

    Adjacent areas we look at when the company is paired tightly to a therapeutic program — companion diagnostics for an oncology asset, a digital tool for adherence in a urology indication.

INVESTMENT CRITERIA

How we read a deck.

The short version of how we make decisions, by therapeutic area. The long version is on the criteria page, with the diligence questions we actually ask.

Therapeutic areaEntry stageInitial checkGeographyBoard involvementDetail link
OncologyResearch to pre-IND$3M–$15MUS, EU, JapanVoting seat or observerDetail
ImmunologyPre-IND to phase I$5M–$20MUS, EU, JapanVoting seatDetail
UrologyPre-IND to proof-of-concept$3M–$12MUS, EUVoting seat or observerDetail
Adjacent platformsSeed to series B$2M–$10MGlobalObserverDetail

MODALITY & STAGE

What we look at, and when.

Modality

No religious view on modality. The question is whether the program is the right shape for the biology, not whether it fits a preferred chemistry.

  • Small molecules
  • Biologics
  • Gene / cell therapy

Stage

Most of the portfolio came in at research to pre-IND. A few we picked up at IND or proof-of-concept when the science was right.

  • Research to pre-IND
  • IND to PoC (opportunistic)

WHAT WE ASK

The diligence questions, before the meeting.

A short list of the questions that come up in the first hour. None of them are gotchas. They are the questions a chemist or a regulatory lead at Taiho would ask anyway; we ask them before the term sheet so the conversation after is about the science.

  1. Q01

    What does first-in-class mean for your target?

    Specifically: what has the field tried, what worked, what was the failure mode, and what about your approach makes the failure mode not apply.

  2. Q02

    Which animal model would change your mind?

    A working hypothesis becomes a program when there is an experiment that could falsify it. We want to know which one you would run if you had the budget.

  3. Q03

    Where does the molecule fail in PK / PD?

    Every chemistry has a failure mode. We are more comfortable with founders who can name theirs than ones who say there is not one yet.

  4. Q04

    Who is the first patient, in the first study, on the first day?

    A specific patient at a specific site with specific inclusion criteria. The answer is rarely on the first slide; it is usually on the slide we ask for.

  5. Q05

    What is the FDA conversation you are most worried about?

    Pre-IND, IND, end-of-phase II. The conversation Taiho has walked through with regulators on commercial products. We are happy to walk it again with you.

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