Shop Talk: PA responsible for three percent of all VC-created jobs, 6th in nation

When it comes to ranking private equity markets by the number of deals completed, Philadelphia typically ranks in the upper-half of the middle of the pack. So when the National Venture Capital Association released a report yesterday categorizing markets by state instead of by region, where did Pennsylvania land?

Around 6th place.

Despite Philadelphia ranking ninth in deals made and twelfth in total-invested in Q3, Pennsylvania ranks sixth in the nation when it comes to the percentage of jobs created through private equity investment.

The numbers were released Tuesday by the National Venture Capital Association as part of Global Entrepreneurship Week. The NVCA has been releasing a VC report every day, including the results of interviews with 500 CEOs and VCs.

So as we do every so often, allow us to peel apart the boring spreadsheets to surmise what this means for our fair city.

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Safeguard Scientifics invests $5 million in locally-based Quinnova

Now this is what we like to see: local VCs investing in local companies.

Wayne-based Safeguard Scientifics has invested $5 million in Newtown-based Quinnova Pharmaceuticals. The investment leads a Series B expansion round of $17.4 million.

According to a press release, the company will use the investment in part to fund a Phase III clinical trial and to aid in the company’s sales and marketing efforts. Quinnova specializes in developing drugs that can be applied through the skin and has a patent on technology for a delivering skin medicine in a foam.

According the Inquirer’s Joe Destefano, Quinnova employs 40 people and is developing additional products under its Proderm and Neosalus brands.

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Friday Q&A: Russell Greig of GlaxoSmithKline’s SR One

Russell Greig has come a long way.

The 57-year-old Scotsman, who still carries that signature and recognizable accent, rode a Fulbright scholarship and a nearly three-decades-long career with pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline to head SR One, the company’s corporate venture capital arm that is no small part of this region’s VC scene, last year.

Greig himself is a fine personification of GSK’s history, now a London-based multinational that grew through several mergers and acquisitions from a 19th-century Philadelphia research laboratory.

GSK still has Philadelphia offices, but it is decidedly an international affair now, neatly represented by Greig and his resume stuffed with international datelines.

SR One itself has, perhaps like Greig who assumed his new leadership role in June 2008, moved. It was launched 24 years ago in Center City but now is a suburban venture, nestled in Conshohocken, like what regional biomedical companies in which they invest.

The University of Manchester alumnus seems to like it here though, raving about the schools and calling those Philadelphia suburbs home to more beautiful trees and seasons than most anywhere he’s seen.

But our life sciences he says, just might not be as distinctive as we’d like to think, no matter the recent attention we’ve gotten for them.

Below, Greig explains why SR One is so Philadelphia, what he would do if he was king and why he “carefully” calls our region’s biomedical innovation disappointing.

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