Pfizer's Middle Way in VC

Corporate venture capital in health care generally tends to be of two types. The first is as a kind of supplement to business development—a way of keeping track of interesting but perhaps fairly long-term pipeline opportunities. The second is as an adjunct to a company's commercial operations—the kinds of investments an R&D-oriented VC wouldn't make.

GlaxoSmithKline PLC 's SR One, Johnson & Johnson 's J&J Development Corp., and Novartis AG 's venture group all fall more or less into the former category,...