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Polaris Stays Disciplined For Breakthroughs: An Interview With Alan Crane

 
• By Marc Wortman

The demands of building new biotechs can take their toll, yet Alan Crane wears his 52 years and over two decades of high-risk biotech start-up investing lightly. He's built an exceptional number of companies during his tenure at Polaris, many of which have proved to be among the industry’s more successful emerging ventures.

Since joining Polaris Partners in 2002 as a partner and entrepreneur, Alan Crane has served as chairman and CEO for the launch of more than six of the VC’s companies. The firms include Momenta Pharmaceuticals Inc., Cerulean Pharma Inc., Visterra Inc., Navitor Pharmaceuticals Inc., XTuit Pharmaceuticals Inc. and Arsia Therapeutics Inc. He has also sat on the boards of many Polaris portfolio companies, including Sirtris Pharmaceuticals (acquired by GlaxoSmithKline PLC for $720 million in 2008 [See Deal]and Adnexus Therapeutics (acquired by Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. for $505 million in 2007 [See Deal]). Crane is perhaps best known, though, as the CEO of Momenta, which he helped build from a four-person virtual start-up into a public company, raising $275 million while working there from 2002 until 2006. Momenta’s first product achieved over $1 billion during its first year of sales.

Boston, MA-based Polaris Partners invests in a health care and technology portfolio, and is currently on its seventh fund, roughly...

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