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Life Sciences Financings and Commentary #49 - February 27, 2021 - March 5, 2021
Financings
Number of deals: 20 & Total capital invested: $1.54B
- Artiva Biotherapeutics raised $120M led by Venrock Healthcare Capital Partners to develop their pipeline of allogeneic NK-cells for oncology.
- Atai Life Sciences raised $157M from Thiel Capital, among others to scale their drug developing holding company for psychedelics and mental health.
- Bionaut Labs raised $20M led by Khosla Ventures to use their magnetically guided delivering vehicles to treat solid tumors.
- Caribou Biosciences raised $115M from Farallon Capital Management, Ridgeback Capital, and PFM Health Sciences to use their CRISPR gene editing platform to develop cell therapies.
- Carisma Therapeutics raised $59M from 4BIO Capital, IP Group, AbbVie Ventures, TPG Biotech, among others to develop a pipeline CAR-macrophages for solid tumors.
- Century Therapeutics raised $160M led by Casdin Capital to use iPSC-derived cell therapies for cancer.
- CorVista Health raised $65M led by Ambix Life Sciences to build a digital health product to non-invasively diagnose cardiovascular disease.
- DispatchHealth raised $200M led by Tiger Global to scale their at-home medical care platform.
- DTx Pharma raised $100M led by RA Capital Management to use their FALCON (Fatty Acid Ligand Conjugated OligoNucleotide) platform for ophthalmology and neuromuscular disease.
- eGenesis raised $125M from Invus, Polaris Partners, Farallon Capital Management, among a pretty large syndicate of VCs to bring their xenotransplantation technology closer to the market.
- Exscientia raised $100M from BlackRock, BMS, Evotec, among others to expand their AI platform for drug development.
- FogPharma raised $107M led by venBio Partners to bring their stapled peptide lead drug candidate targeting KRAS closer to the clinic.
- Goldfinch Health raised $1.4M led by BrokerTech Ventures to build a surgery recovery software and services product for employer health insurance plans.
- Halo Diagnostics raised $19M led by Zola Global Investments to combine molecule diagnostics with imaging to build a services company.
- Oxular raised £27M led by Forbion to develop a pipeline of medicines for retinal diseases.
- PocketPills raised $30M led by TELUS Ventures to build an online pharmacy in Canada.
- Spark Advisors raised $3.6M led by Primary Ventures to build a brokering product for Medicare benefits.
- TechsoMed raised $7M led Axil Capital to commercialize an imaging technology for tissue ablation during surgery.
- Tenaya Therapeutics raised $106M from RA Capital Management, RTW Investment, Fidelity, GV, among others to develop new medicines for cardiovascular disease relying on an AAV strategy to regenerate cardiomyocytes.
- TytoCare raised $50M led by Insight Partners to scale their telemedicine platform of remote medical exams.
Exits
Number of exits: 11 & Total exit value: Over $14B
- Achilles Therapeutics filed for a $100M IPO to develop their phase 1 T-cell therapy assets focused in m/r melanoma and advanced NSCLC - https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1830749/000119312521063774/d19910df1.htm#rom19910_17
- Alignment Healthcare filed to raise $100M in an IPO to continue growing their at-home healthcare business - https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1832466/000119312521067513/d50030ds1.htm
- Connect Biopharma filed a $100M IPO to develop immunotherapies for T-cell driven inflammatory diseases - https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1835268/000119312521060795/d295873df1.htm
- Finch Therapeutics filed an IPO to raise $100M to scale their microbiome drug development platform. Congrats Mark - https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1733257/000119312521060632/d54314ds1.htm
- Five Prime Therapeutics was acquired by Amgen for $1.9B to get the company’s lead drug candidate, bemarituzumab, that is entering phase 3 trials. The drug is an anti-fibroblast growth factor 2b receptor (FGFR2b) antibody to treat gastric cancer; the acquisition is probably premised on the drug’s ability to be combined with Amgen’s internal bispecifics for gastric cancer - https://www.fiercebiotech.com/biotech/amgen-pays-a-premium-for-five-prime-therapeutics-a-1-9b-cash-deal
- InnovAge Holding filed for a $342M IPO to grow their senior care facility business - https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1834376/000110465921031154/tm2037889-10_s1.htm
- Instil Bio filed an IPO to raise $100M to develop new TIL therapies for solid tumors - https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1789769/000119312521060613/d138592ds1.htm
- LAVA Therapeutics filed for a $100M IPO to develop their platform to engineer gamma-delta T-cells in oncology (really cool company) - https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1840748/000119312521065720/d21431df1.htm
- Lumenis was acquired by Boston Scientific for $1.1B to add board their laser products for ear, nose, kidney, and throat procedures - https://www.fiercebiotech.com/medtech/boston-scientific-to-pick-up-lumenis-surgical-laser-business-for-1b
- Pandion Therapeutics was acquired by Merck for $1.85B for their antibody engineering platform for autoimmunity - https://www.merck.com/news/merck-to-acquire-pandion-therapeutics/
- Silicon Therapeutics was acquired by Roivant for $450M in equity to acquire an AI drug development team - https://www.bioworld.com/articles/504117-roivant-acquires-silicon-therapeutics-for-450m-in-equity?v=preview
Deals
Number of deals: 1 & Total deal value: Over $800M
- Debiopharm executed a deal with Merck KGaA to license global rights to xevinapant, an inhibitor of IAPs (inhibitor of apoptosis proteins) to treat squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck for a €188M upfront payment and €710M in milestones - https://www.fiercebiotech.com/biotech/merck-kgaa-pens-855m-upfront-biobucks-pact-debiopharm-for-next-gen-cancer-asset
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 -
online-ukpharmacy.org