BCM Legacy Fund launches to invest...

Molly Chiu

713-798-4710

Houston, TX - Nov 9, 2026

Share this article

BCM Legacy Fund I, LP ("Legacy Fund"), a new early stage biomedical venture fund capitalized by philanthropic limited partners and affiliated with Baylor College of Medicine, today announced its public launch. The BCM Legacy Fund intends to make catalytic investments in biomedical startups at the earliest stage of the journey where promising science is abundant, but capital is scarce. The Fund has made its first investment in Nemea Therapeutics, Inc., a Houston company built on research from Baylor and the Lead Discovery Center in Dortmund, Germany, that is developing an oral drug for individuals with metastatic triple-negative breast cancer that no longer responds to current therapy.

"Baylor College of Medicine's laboratories produce discoveries with the potential to change patients' lives, and too many of them stall where academic funding ends and private investment has not yet begun," said Dr. Jakub Tolar, president, CEO and executive dean of Baylor College of Medicine. "The BCM Legacy Fund fills that gap, giving our scientists a path to advance their discoveries to patients."

Each year the National Institutes of Health alone awards more than $36 billion to biomedical research in the United States, generating scores of discoveries that could lead to new treatments, and even cures, for diseases ranging from debilitating neurological disorders to hard-to-treat cancers to rare pediatric conditions. Only a fraction reach patients. Getting there is a relay, with each leg funded by a different form of capital. Many discoveries never leave the starting line because they don't yet fit the economics of venture capital.

The BCM Legacy Fund introduces a new form of capital at the earliest stage of that relay, where it has historically been scarcest. It aggregates philanthropic capital from private foundations and donor-advised funds and invests it in startups to carry a company to the point where industry and later-stage investors will take it the rest of the way to patients.

"It's exciting to be on the forefront of a new model for philanthropic capital," said Burton Hanson, managing partner of the BCM Legacy Fund. "Not only do we hope to solve a real problem by advancing these therapies to the patients who need them most, but we also hope this model will inspire others in the city and beyond toward philanthropic creativity and a posture of 'I sacrifice; we win.'"

BCM Legacy Fund expects to invest in ~15 early-stage companies over five years. Investments are sized to fund a "minimum partner-ready dataset," the evidence an industry partner, disease-focused foundation or later-stage investor needs to further the development of the science. To find those opportunities, the fund maps research activity across leading biomedical institutions against signals of what industry is looking for and invests in the companies bridging the two.

The fund is led by Managing Partners Burton Hanson, a Houston entrepreneur and investor who serves as Board Member of the Fondren Foundation, and Steve Lehmann, a venture builder and investor who previously built and led the venture investments practice at Portal Innovations and led the University of Chicago's Innovation Fund. It is governed by a Board of Managers composed of Debra McCoy, a former managing director at BlackRock and partner at Bain & Company, and Paul Thomas, co-founder and CEO of Luscinia Health. Dr. Paul Klotman, former president and CEO of Baylor College of Medicine, serves as senior strategic advisor.

Locally, Baylor College of Medicine and the BCM Legacy Fund work with Greater Houston Community Foundation as a philanthropic partner, connecting donors with opportunities to support Baylor's mission. Over the past 10 years, Community Foundation donors have contributed more than $17 million to Baylor, reflecting the deep philanthropic support for its work in Houston.

BCM Legacy Fund's first investment: Nemea Therapeutics

BCM Legacy Fund's first investment is in Nemea Therapeutics. Nemea's lead compound starves cancer cells of the mitochondrial supply they rely on to survive. It combines biology from the laboratory of Baylor College of Medicine's Gloria Echeverria, assistant professor of molecular and cellular biology, with more than a decade of chemistry from the Lead Discovery Center, which was established in 2008 by the technology transfer organization Max Planck Innovation.

"We are delighted to have the support of the BCM Legacy Fund as we advance a novel oral therapy for patients with mitochondria-dependent cancers," said Dr. Andreas Bader, co-founder and CEO of Nemea Therapeutics. Bader brings more than 20 years of biotech leadership and co-founded the company as an entrepreneur-in-residence with Texas Medical Center Innovation.

"The first leg of the relay is where discoveries become companies, and it is the leg with the fewest runners," Lehmann said. "Nemea has world-class chemistry, Baylor biology and patients with no good options. Our job is to fund the experiments that carry it to the next handoff, so that industry and later-stage investors can take it from there."

A team led by partners Andrew Strong and Barry Burgdorf from Hogan Lovells Cadwalader and Melissa McMorrow from Nutter McClennen & Fish served as counsel to BCM Legacy Fund.

For more information, visit legacyfund.org.