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Life Sciences Financings and Commentary #42 - January 9, 2021 - January 15, 2021
Financings
Number of deals: 17 & Total capital invested: $1.4B
- Affinivax raised $226M with Foresite Capital and Rock Springs Capital co-leading to round to uses its vaccine design platform, MAPS (Multiple Antigen Presenting System), focused on a pneumococcal vaccine and others around healthcare-associated infections
- Atalanta Therapeutics raised $110M led by F-Prime Capital to develop new RNAi medicines for neurodegenerative diseases.
- Aulos Bioscience raised $40M led by ATP to develop antibody therapeutics to bind IL-2 to treat solid tumors.
- Earli raised $40M led by Khosla Ventures to induce tumors to produce synthetic biomarkers for early detection. Epitome of “this just got personal.”
- Frankie Health raised $1.3M from E15 VC to build a mental health treatment platform for employers.
- IO Biotech raised €127M led by HBM Healthcare to develop their pipeline of immunotherapies targeting PD-L1, IDO, and Arginase-1.
- Jumpcode Genomics raised $21M co-led by Arboretum Ventures and Baird Capital to use their CRISPR kit to make RNA sequencing more accurate.
- Kenbi raised €7M led by Redalpine to build software that organizes local care teams to provide outpatient, at-home services.
- Komodo Health raised $44M led by ICONIQ Growth to scale their healthcare data services business to enable new therapies and treatments.
- Lumiata raised $14M co-led by Defy.vc and AllegisNL Capital for their healthcare products focused on predictive models for financials and lifecycle management.
- NeuroFlow raised $20M led by Magellan Health to scale their behavioral health products.
- NuProbe raised $42M co-led by BioTrack Capital and Yonghua Capital to scale their genomics and diagnostics business.
- NewAmsterdam Pharma raised $196M led by Forbion to develop new medicines for cardio-metabolic diseases.
- Paige raised $100M co-led by Casdin Capital and Johnson & Johnson Innovation to scale their computational pathology platform for hospitals and labs.
- Sensei Biotherapeutics raised $30M led by Future Ventures to develop their pipeline of immunophages for cancer treatment.
- Tessera Therapeutics raised $230M from Flagship Pioneering, Alaska Permanent Fund, Softbank Vision Fund 2, among others to build a drug pipeline around their “gene writing” platform.
- Visen Pharmaceuticals raised $150M led by Sequoia China to develop medicines for endocrine-related disorders.
Exits
Number of exits: 4 & Total exit value: Over $4B
- Kymab was acquired by Sanofi for $1.45B ($1.1B cash) to get the former’s anti-OX40L monoclonal antibody to treat atopic dermatitis - https://www.bioworld.com/articles/502223-no-ipo-for-kymab-as-sanofi-offers-11b-up-front-plus-350m-in-milestones
- Landos Biopharma filed for a $100M IPO to develop their drug candidates for autoimmunity targeting LANCL2, NLRX1 and PLXDC2 - https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1785345/000119312521008210/d89081ds1.htm
- Talkspace a telemedicine company helping patients find a psychologist/psychiatrist is going public through a SPAC valuing the business at $1.4B - https://www.statnews.com/2021/01/13/talkspace-to-go-public-in-1-4-billion-spac-deal/
- Sana Biotechnology filed to raise a $150M IPO to create hypoimmunogenic pluripotent stem cells as starting material for new cell therapies - https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1770121/000119312521007483/d60414ds1.htm
Deals
Number of deals: 5 & Total deal value: Over $3B
- BeiGene announced a deal with Novartis to develop and commercialize an anti-PD-1 antibody, tislelizumab. BeiGene executed a really great deal here - going from Celgene, which was canceled after the BMS acquisition to Novartis. BeiGene is receiving a $650M upfront payment with up to $1.55B in milestones and royalties - https://www.bioworld.com/articles/502283-beigene-inks-22b-pd-1-deal-with-novartis-for-cancer-drug-tislelizumab
- Enara Bio executed a deal worth up to $1.06B with Boehringer Ingelheim to use its platform to identify non-coding antigens for cancer - https://www.biospace.com/article/enara-bio-boehringer-ingelheim-agree-to-collab-on-immunotherapy-discovery-research-/
- Evoq Therapeutics announced a deal worth up to $240M with Amgen to use the former’s nanodiscs technology to potentially treat autoimmunity - https://www.fiercebiotech.com/biotech/evoq-pens-240m-amgen-pact-for-next-gen-autoimmune-meds
- GRAIL announced collaborations with Amgen, AstraZeneca, and Bristol-Myers Squibb to use GRAIL’s liquid biopsy technology to treat minimal residual disease (MRD), which will inform cancer treatments - https://www.precisiononcologynews.com/business-news/grail-inks-deals-amgen-astrazeneca-bristol-myers-squibb-mrd-test-development#.YAHA92jYpFQ
- Strand Therapeutics announced a deal worth up to $310M with BeiGene to use Strand’s programmable mRNA platform to treat solid tumors for up to 2 programs. Congrats Jacob. - https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210111005317/en/Strand-Therapeutics-and-BeiGene-Enter-into-Agreement-to-Develop-Solid-Tumor-Immuno-Oncology-Therapeutics-Based-on-Strand%E2%80%99s-Next-Generation-Multi-Functional-mRNA-Technology
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 -