Life Sciences Financings and Commentary #48

More money, more problems to solve

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Life Sciences Financings and Commentary #48 - February 20, 2021 - February 26, 2021

Financings

Number of deals: 16 & Total capital invested: $1.15B

- ABclonal Biotechnology raised $92.9M with Sequoia Capital China and LYFE Capital co-leading the round grow their antibody and life sciences reagents marketplace.

- Cellarity raised $123M from Baupost Group, BlackRock, Flagship Pioneering, among others to use their ML and single-cell platform to develop new medicines.

- Clover Biopharmaceuticals raised $230M co-led by Temasek and GL Ventures to develop a pipeline of vaccines and trimeric-targeting drug candidates in IO focused in China.

- Future Fields raised $2.2M led by Bee Partners to build a business focused on supplying growth factors to the cultured meats market.

- Jaguar Gene Therapy raised $40M led by Deerfield to develop gene therapies for rare genetic disorders such as galactosemia and Bardet-Biedel syndrome. The company is led by the former founders of AveXis.

- January raised $8M from Felicis Ventures, SignalFire, among others to develop a platform that uses algorithms that predict individualized glycemic responses to specific meals for users. Its platform gives real-time insights on how diet and exercise affect your glucose levels from which foods to avoid to when a brisk walk can bring you back into a healthy zone.

- Medisafe raised $30M with Sanofi Ventures and ALIVE Israel HealthTech Fund co-leading the round to develop digital therapeutics for medication adherence.

- Orna Therapeutics raised $100M from MPM Capital, F2 Ventures, and Taiho Ventures to develop new circular RNA therapeutics. 

- Redox raised $45M led by Adams Street Partners to build a platform to connect new healthcare products to EHRs.

- Regor Therapeutics raised $90M led by Lilly Asia Ventures to use their structure-based design platform to develop new medicines for cancer, metabolic diseases, and immune disorders.

- SpineZone raised $12M with Polaris Partners and Providence Ventures co-leading the round to develop new digital health treatments for musculoskeletal conditions.

- Teon Therapeutics raised $30M led by Oceanpine Capital to develop new medicines in oncology targeting the Warburg Effect.

- Truvian Sciences raised $105M from TYH Ventures, Glen Tullman, and Wittington Ventures to scale their PoC diagnostics product that can do a broad panel from lips to metabolic and liver function in one test run.

- VenoStent raised $2.3M led by Creative Ventures to develop biopolymers to improve recovery rates after vascular incisions during kidney surgery.

- WuXi Diagnostics raised $150M from Thermo Fisher, Shiyu Capital, among others to scale their services platform to power new diagnostics from the lab to the clinic.

- Xilio Therapeutics raised $95M led by Rock Springs Capital to develop their pipeline of tumor-selective immunotherapies from an IL-2 agonist to IL-15 and an anti-CTLA-4 antibody.

Exits

Number of exits: 2 & Total exit value: Over $6.4B

- Guide Therapeutics was acquired by Beam Therapeutics for up to $440M to bring on their non-viral delivery screening platform to combine with Beam’s gene editing technology - https://www.bioworld.com/articles/503928-beam-adds-targeting-tech-with-440m-guide-buy

- Oscar Health to raise up to $1B in an IPO to scale their health insurance products particularly to employers, Medicare Advantage, and co-branded plans - https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1568651/000119312521030955/d28906ds1.htm

Deals

Number of deals: 1 & Total deal value: Over $100M

- Boston Immune Technologies & Therapeutics (BITT) announced a deal with BeiGene worth up to $125M.  BITT received $16.6M in an upfront and near-term milestone payments along with a $4M equity investment. BITT licensed their tumor necrosis factor receptor 2 (TNFR2) antagonist antibodies to Beigene in the APAC region. Congrats Russell - https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210217005008/en/Boston-Immune-Technologies-and-Therapeutics-and-BeiGene-Enter-into-an-Exclusive-Option-and-License-Agreement-to-Develop-Novel-TNFR2-Antagonists

I used to play football a long time ago - I had some decent success mainly because of my teammates with some of them playing in the NFL. Every practice, every game was an existential fight. I’m not that athletic so every year some 6’4 monster would show up trying to take my spot. Similarly, all of these companies are fighting for their right to exist whether they raised $1M or $100M. Building a great business requires passion and focus. A really powerful and useful framework to lead groups of people and win was developed by Bill Walsh -