How the smart money thinks about neuroscience

A string of expensive disappointments has led major drug companies to largely abandon the field of neuroscience, leaving the high-risk, high-reward work to venture-backed startups. For investors, that presents huge opportunities for returns — provided you know how to place your bets.

STAT’s Kate Sheridan talked to some of biotech’s high-profile fund managers about discerning potential from pitfalls in the fast-moving space. The complexity of neuroscience has made it that much more complicated to evaluate a given company’s plan to treat Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s diseases, they said, and separating good ideas from bad ones can come down to the finer points of choosing animal models.

“It’s somewhat similar to the breadth of oncology,” said Adam Koppel, a managing director at Bain Capital Life Sciences. “Oncology is also cell growth and cell development going awry — but there, it’s different organ systems, leading to different types of disease with different outcomes.” In neuroscience, all that variation takes place in the brain.

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