KKR Buys Minority Stake in Catalio Capital

George Petrocheilos

Catalio Capital Management, founded by Johns Hopkins alumni George Petrocheilos and R. Jacob Vogelstein, has sold a minority stake to investing giant KKR, The Wall Street Journal said in an exclusive report on Tuesday.

Catalio, which was spun out of investment firm Camden Partners in 2020, focuses on investing in life-sciences startups. In January, it also entered public-markets investments via the acquisition of hedge fund HealthCor Management.

Life Sciences Opportunities

“There’s a realization that the life sciences opportunity is real, it’s tangible,” Ali Satvat, a partner and head of healthcare strategic growth for KKR, told the Journal. KKR reportedly plans to invest in Catalio’s funds, besides considering other life sciences investments.

Satvat and Petrocheilos, who was only 22 when he made Baltimore Business Journal’s “40 under 40,” declined to disclose details of KKR’s investment or the size of the stake it acquired in Catalio.

KKR has previously invested in private life sciences firms via two healthcare growth-equity funds. Its portfolio investments include Treeline Biosciences and BridgeBio Pharma, which went public in 2019. Over the past several months, private-equity firms, such as Carlyle, Apollo Global Management and Blackstone, also have struck deals with life sciences investment firms, the Journal pointed out.

New Advisory Board

Catalio and KKR have formed a new advisory board for the venture firm, chaired by KKR co-founder and co-Executive Chairman Henry Kravis. Other members include former Johnson & Johnson CEO Alex Gorsky and Dina Powell McCormick, vice chairman and president of global client services at merchant bank BDT & MSD Partners.

When working at Camden, Petrocheilos cofounded Camden Nexus, a unit to specialize investments in biomedical tech companies coming out of Johns Hopkins. Eventually, that unit was spun out as a separate firm. He has also served at HealthCor and Global Domain Hedge Fund. Petrocheilos is among the board of trustees at Kennedy Krieger Institute, Baltimore School for the Arts and Johns Hopkins Center for Financial Economics.

R. Jacob Vogelstein, cofounder and managing partner of Catalio Capital Management, also worked with Petrocheilos at Camden. He serves on the board of Haystack, and several other portfolio companies including Cage Pharmaceuticals and Entos AI.

Earlier in his career, Vogelstein served on the faculty at Johns Hopkins University, at both the Applied Physics Laboratory and the Whiting School of Engineering. He earned a BSc. degree in bio-electrical engineering from Brown University and a Ph.D. degree in biomedical engineering from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

Vogelstein’s father, Dr. Bert Vogelstein, is a Clayton professor of oncology and co-director, with Dr. Ken Kinzler, of the Ludwig Center at Johns Hopkins’ Kimmel Cancer Center. He is renowned for his work in cancer genomics and cancer testing.

30 Nobelists Tied to Catalio
Catalio boasts of partnerships with 36 world-renowned scientists who have each started several successful companies. As many as 30 Nobel Prize winners “own a piece of Catalio,” The Hellenic Initiative once pointed out. Catalio’s principals include Jonathan Blankfein, a former Goldman Sachs banker.

The high-profile firm has raised at least $566 million from three funds. Its most recent fund worth $85 million closed in October 2022. Last May, its Catalio Nexus Fund III closed at $381 million. Catalio has made nearly 50 portfolio investments. Its recent bets include Perceive Biotherapeutics, Metagenomi, Ensoma, Medical Informatics, Haystack Oncology, Odyssey Therapeutics, Fractyl Health and Cartography Biosciences.