He’s also been a driving force behind some of the biggest companies in Boston biotech for the past 30 years.
“Tim is a weird-science guy,” says Derrick Rossi, a biotech entrepreneur and retired Harvard Medical School professor. “His passion is in the mechanics of biology.”
Rossi doesn’t mean “weird” in a bad way — just that Springer is driven by the desire to fill in the vast gaps in our knowledge of how our cells function, in health and in disease. And Rossi says he is grateful that when he pitched Springer on his own research into the potential uses of modified messenger RNA, back in 2010 when the two were colleagues at Harvard, Springer set in motion a series of events that created the company Moderna — and committed to being its first investor. Due largely to Moderna’s success, Forbes estimates that Springer’s net worth is north of $2 billion.
Springer has been a founder or investor in about a half-dozen other biotech companies, including LeukoSite, which went public and was acquired in 1999 for $635 million, Selecta Biosciences, Morphic Therapeutic, and a publicly traded Cambridge company called Scholar Rock, after Springer’s favorite collectable object. (It is working on drugs to treat a genetic disease called spinal muscular atrophy, which typically emerges in early childhood.)
Drugs already on the market that Springer has had a hand in treat diseases like cancer, multiple sclerosis, and Crohn’s disease and colitis. One drug for inflammation of the gut, Entyvio, generates more than $4 billion in sales a year for its parent company, Takeda — the Japanese company’s single biggest product.
“Tim is a special breed of person who understands how you can be successful in a commercial setting, and also fulfill your potential as an academic researcher and a teacher,” says Terry McGuire, a venture capitalist whose Boston firm, Polaris Partners, has put money into several of Springer’s startups. “When he calls, the answer is, ‘Yes. What is it that you want to do?’”
Springer, a native of Sacramento, Calif., has been connected to Harvard since the early 1970s, when he arrived to earn a doctorate in biochemistry and molecular biology; by 1977, he was an assistant professor. Springer’s study of the way the immune system can at times overreact — involving those proteins called integrins — led him to launch his first startup, LeukoSite, in 1992. To demonstrate how these integrins behaved inside the walls of blood vessels, Springer had a kids’ sticky “splat” ball that he would toss onto a wall, and let slowly roll down.
“One of the guys I was pitching for funding said, ‘This guy is so crazy, we’ve got to fund this company,’” Springer recalls. The company began to develop drugs that could block the immune system’s over-activity in diseases like Crohn’s, where inflammation disrupts the normal activity of the gastrointestinal tract. The resulting drug, Entyvio, is delivered to patients intravenously about six times a year. A newer Springer startup, Morphic, is working to develop a pill version.
LeukoSite’s sale to Millennium Pharmaceuticals — a big deal in Boston biotech history — put about $100 million into Springer’s bank account, and gave him the ability to invest in both his own and other people’s startups. His approach for his own ventures is to put up half the funding, and get a venture capital firm — these days, often Polaris — to provide the other half.
“What I am good at is recognizing good technology,” Springer says. “There are lots of companies started on technology that is hyped up, and doesn’t hold up.”
Rossi recalls his first significant conversation with Springer, in 2010. Springer, who was far more senior, had missed a lunchtime talk that…
Read More: This billionaire has quietly driven Boston’s biotech industry for decades