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Life Sciences Financings and Commentary #28 - October 3, 2020 - October 9, 2020
Financings
Number of deals: 15 & Total capital invested: $677.5M
- A2 Biotherapeutics raised $71.5M from The Column Group, Vida Ventures, Samsara BioCapital, Nextech Invest, and Casdin Capital among others to develop cell therapies against solid tumors.
- Alucent Biomedical raised $35M from Fresenius Medical Care Ventures to use photoactivated protein linking to potentially restore vessels and provide durable patency without stents or other implants.
- Avail Medsystems raised $100M led by D1 Capital Partners to develop telemedicine products for the surgical room.
- Cerebral raised $35M led by Oak HC/FT to scale their online mental health management product.
- Datavant raised $40M led by Transformation Capital to scale their biopharma data sharing product.
- Federation Bio raised $50M led by Horizons Ventures to develop microbial therapeutics. Their lead program is designed to find a curative role for the human gut microbiome and focuses on secondary hyperoxaluria, whose symptoms range from kidney stones and urinary tract infections to chronic kidney disease and end-stage renal disease.
- Hyperice raised $48M with Main Street Advisors and SC.Holdings co-leading the round to develop new devices for muscle recovery.
- Janpixraised $10M led by Medicxi to develop their small-molecule protein degraders of STAT3 and STAT5 into final preclinical studies and eventually into the clinic to treat various hematological and solid tumor cancers.
- Lark Health raised $55M led by King River Capital to scale their digital health product for chronic disease.
- Neocis raised $72M led by DFJ Growth to commercial their robotics device for assisting dental implant surgery.
- Newlight Technologies raised $45M led by Valedor Partners to commercial theirocean-degradable biopolymers.
- Scribe Therapeutics raised $20M led by a16z to develop new gene editing drugs based on their CasX effector.
- ScriptDrop raised $15M led by Ohio Innovation Fund to use software to connect pharmacies, couriers, providers, pharmaceutical manufacturers, and patients.
- Walden Biosciences raised $51M from ARCH Venture Partners and UCB Ventures to develop new medicines focused on kidney disease - https://www.fiercebiotech.com/biotech/walden-biosciences-receives-51m-to-launch-startup-focused-kidney-disease
- Your.MD raised $30M led by Reckitt Benckiser to scale their DIY health app.
Exits
Number of exits: 6 & Total exit value: Over $20B
- Biodesix filed for a $75M IPO to scale their diagnostic tests and services for lung disease - https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1439725/000119312520262422/d937421ds1.htm
- Clover Health is going public through a SPAC sponsored by Social Capital valuing Clover at $3.7B to scale their software platform for Medicare Advantage patients - https://www.cnbc.com/2020/10/06/chamath-palihapitiya-to-take-clover-health-public-in-another-spac-deal-worth-3point7-billion.html
- Enterprise Therapeutics was acquired by Roche for $97M to bring on board the former’s lead asset in cystic fibrosis.
- Eidos Therapeutics is being acquired by its parent company, BridgeBio to internalize its ATTR drug candidate - https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2020/10/05/2103406/0/en/BridgeBio-Pharma-and-Eidos-Therapeutics-Announce-Merger-Agreement.html
- Foghorn Therapeutics filed to raise $100M in an IPO to develop new medicines targeting gene regulators for oncology - https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1822462/000119312520262469/d12441ds1.htm
- Myokardia was acquired by Bristol Myers Squibb and bring on the former’s cardiovascular drug, mavacamten, an allosteric modulator of cardiac myosin for obstructive hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) - https://www.bioworld.com/articles/498574-myosins-for-givin-131b-takeover-by-bms-blesses-myokardia-points-at-cytokinetics-pipeline
Deals
Number of deals: 4 & Total deal value: Over $1B
- Arrowhead Pharmaceuticals announced a deal with Takeda for up to $1B, with $300M upfront, to co-develop and co-commercialize an investigational RNAi-based liver disease treatment - https://www.fiercebiotech.com/biotech/takeda-strikes-1b-biobucks-deal-arrowhead-for-genetic-liver-disease-asset
- Galmed Pharmaceuticals announced a deal with Gannex to develop a combination therapy comprising for nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) - https://www.prnewswire.com/il/news-releases/gannex-and-galmed-expand-development-programs-for-nash-through-research-collaboration-of-aramchol-and-asc41-thr-beta-agonist-301126220.html
- Scribe Therapeutics announced a deal with Biogen with $15M upfront and up to $400M in development and commercial milestones to develop gene editing drugs for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) - https://www.bioworld.com/articles/498621-starting-with-biogen-deal-in-als-scribe-planning-a-new-chapter-in-crispr-story
- Yufan Biotechnologies announced a deal with Abound Bio to develop antibodies against 10 cancer targets to help guide development CAR-T cells therapies - https://www.biospace.com/article/releases/yufan-biotechnologies-and-abound-bio-sign-multi-year-agreement-to-develop-next-generation-car-t-cell-therapies-for-cancer/
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 -