Pacific Horizon: Encouraging Mutations in the Venture Model

Pacific Horizon is an active venture investor, often owning large majority stakes in its portfolio companies. The venture capitalist has taken two different strategies with its majority-owned virology investments, Illumigen and Koronis, eschewing and embracing risk, respectively. Each firm, however, represents a potential game-changing opportunity, and illustrates PHV's back-to-basics venture philosophy: making novel-mechanism bets that are perceived as having both high scientific risks and long-term potential paybacks