Fortress Biotech
Fortress Biotech identifies, in-licenses and develops high-potential drug candidates that other companies have put on the back burner. Founded by Dr. Lindsay Rosenwald, it functions as an aggregator of biotech and specialty pharma assets with a strong shared-services backbone to provide a cost-effective partner company business structure not dissimilar to the technology incubators that launched some of today’s most popular online services and ecommerce sites. This business model is driven by a world-class business development team comprised primarily of MDs and PhDs whom Fortress trains to scour the world for de-risked, high value, low-acquisition-cost assets.
Fortress uses multiple approaches to identify and analyze hundreds of drug candidates, which includes analyzing whether each candidate has strong data, its market potential, manufacturing process, likelihood of success, and whether it addresses an unmet need. In April 2019, one of Fortress’ companies, Mustang Bio, announced that its gene therapy for bubble boy disease had cured eight babies suffering from the rare condition. The data were published in the New England Journal of Medicine and received international news coverage as a major scientific breakthrough.