Our
Story
Our Roots
BVD’s Founders & Our Founding Intent
Our founders, Jim and Virginia Stowers, who both personally experienced cancer in their lifetime, envisioned a biotechnology company that could approach the pursuit of groundbreaking medicines differently from the traditional biotech model with the sole goal of making a difference for patients.
Jim Stowers founded the asset management firm, American Century Investments (ACI), located in Kansas City, Missouri, in the 1950s. Today, ACI manages over $200 billion in assets. Jim and Virginia subsequently founded the Stowers Group of Companies, which includes the Stowers Institute for Medical Research (Stowers Institute), a non-profit institute to pursue pioneering biomedical research, and Biomed Valley Discoveries (BVD), a for-profit biotechnology company to pursue medicines for patients. BVD is wholly owned by a supporting organization of Stowers Institute.
The Stowers challenged Stowers Institute and BVD to approach their respective roles with an intent and mission of hope for life. Core to the Stowers’ vision was their creation of a unique funding model to support both Stowers Institute’s and BVD’s efforts.
Who We Are
BVD Today
BVD is a clinical-stage biotechnology company on a quest to make a meaningful difference for patients.
We seek to advance our founders’ intent of hope for life by focusing on translational and clinical efforts in areas of significant unmet need with as broad a scope as possible, subsequently partnering our assets for later stage development and commercialization to ensure the greatest impact to patients.
Biotech,
Purposefully
Reimagined
Operating out of Kansas City, alongside SIMR and ACI, we take great pride in our founder and Midwest roots and our company model. The stable, secure funding we receive enables us to operate free from the need to fundraise and consider short-term investor interests, which can influence portfolio decisions and clinical development strategy. This freedom, and our exclusive commitment to our founders’ intent, have enabled us to build a purposefully reimagined biotechnology company, with distinct approaches to candidate sourcing, research and development, compassionate use/expanded access, collaborations, partnering/out-licensing, and overall corporate infrastructure.
We are currently leveraging our novel model and approach to advance three distinct oncology programs, each of which represents novel science and biology.