Novartis alums Jimenez, Fishman unveil their next act: Aditum Bio

When Joe Jimenez left Novartis, one thing was clear: After 11 years in the biopharma biz and eight at the Swiss drugmaker’s helm, he was ready to build something from scratch. Now, he’s unveiling that something: Aditum Bio, a biotech investment firm he co-founded with Mark Fishman, M.D., former president of the Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research.

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The duo set up shop in 2019 but are coming out of stealth now that Aditum has closed its first fund of $135 million and launched its second company, Jimenez said. Its strategy is to pick up preclinical programs and spin them out into companies to carry out phase 1 and phase 2 work.

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“We saw a void in the market where many companies were focusing a lot of resources on immuno-oncology, cell and gene therapy and rare diseases, and it was leaving open disease areas where there are large patient populations, like obesity and substance abuse disorder, but are not getting the same kind of resources,” Jimenez said. “Aditum is the Latin word for ‘access,’ and the mission of this company is to give patients access to medicines that otherwise might not get developed.”

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