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How Proximity Creates Partnerships

VC Playbook: Sean Harper’s Bet On A Rising City Of Angels

 
• By William Looney

Former Amgen R&D lead Sean Harper talks exclusively to In Vivo about his new role as a venture capitalist, joining veteran industry investor Beth Seidenberg as co-founder of Los Angeles-based Westlake Village BioPartners.

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Sean Harper

Harper told In Vivo that the big challenges for VCs today are how to conduct due diligence in an era of accelerating scientific discovery; declining trust between VCs and start-ups, accentuated by the big money flowing into the sector without any knowledge of drug development; and getting the “human factor” right in helping a new business with good fundamentals to reach its potential.

In all cases, intuition derived from years of accumulated exposures and experience is invaluable – an asset that many new VC firms lack.

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