Life Sciences Financings and Commentary #37
Tags: Venture Capital, Biotechnology, Investing, Healthcare, Medicine

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Life Sciences Financings and Commentary #37 — December 5, 2020 — December 11, 2020

Financings

Number of deals: 14 & Total capital invested: $1.04B

- BioAge Labs raised $90M co-led by a16z and Elad Gil to bring two of the aging-focused medicines into the clinic with their lead asset, BGE-117 targeting HIF-1. Congrats Kristen.

- Calm raised $75M led by Lightspeed to scale up their meditation app. One of the Co-Founders, Alex Tew, created the Million Dollar Homepage — http://www.milliondollarhomepage.com/

- Centivo raised $34M led by B Capital Group to build a new tech-enabled health insurance plan. All of this competition will likely drive plans to low-cost out-of-pocket plans.

- Cityblock Health raised $160M from General Catalyst, Maverick Ventures, Thrive Capital, and Redpoint Ventures to scale their healthcare product that fills in care gaps in lower-income communities.

- Deepcell raised $20M led by Bow Capital to use image-based cell sorting for diagnostics.

- Elation Health raised $40M led by Generation Investment Management to build a new EHR to improve patient engagement, deal with virtual care, and integrated with other service providers.

- LeanTaaS raised $130M led by Insight Partners to build software and analytics to make scheduling more efficient for operating rooms and infusion centers.

- Neuroglee Therapeutics raised $2.3M led by Eisai to develop new digital therapeutics for Alzheimer’s and mild cognitive impairment.

- RayzeBio raised $105M led by Venrock Healthcare Capital Partners to develop their pipeline of radiopharmaceuticals in oncology — https://www.bioworld.com/articles/501057-a-second-rayze-rayzebio-closes-105m-series-b-for-preclinical-radiopharmaceutical-pipeline?v=preview

- Remix Therapeutics raised $81M led by Foresite Capital to develop new medicines targeting RNA processing.

- Reneo Pharmaceuticals raised $95M co-led by Novo Ventures and Abringworth to develop new medicines for mitochondrial diseases focused on primary mitochondrial myopathies (PMMs), a group of rare, often life-threatening diseases caused by mutations in genes of the mitochondria.

- Sanguina raised $4.2M from The Seed Lab and XRC Labs to develop an mobile application to allow people to use their phone to track blood hemoglobin levels.

- Story Health raised $4M from General Catalyst and Define Ventures to build software for virtual specialty care.

- Tempus raised $200M from Google, Novo Holdings, T. Rowe Price, and Baillie Gifford to scale their AI-enabled precision medicine platform for drug development and genomics services.

Exits

Number of exits: 6 & Total exit value: Over $8B

- 4D Molecular Therapeutics filed for a $100M IPO to develop their pipeline of AAV gene therapies and grow their discovery platform. Congrats David — https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1650648/000119312520311111/d69563ds1a.htm

- BioAtla filed for a $150M IPO to develop their pipeline of conditionally-activated antibodies based on the Warburg Effect focused on solid tumors — https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1826892/000119312520293235/d258427ds1.htm

- Harbour BioMed raised ~$221M on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange to use their mice humanization platform for antibody drug development in oncology and immunology — https://www.bioworld.com/articles/501210-harbour-debuts-on-hkex-with-221m-ipo-eyes-innovation-through-partnership?v=preview

- MYR Pharmaceuticals was acquired by Gilead for ~$1.4B with ~$360M in a milestone if MYR’s Hepcludex (bulevirtide) gains FDA approval for chronic hepatitis delta virus (HDV) — https://www.fiercebiotech.com/biotech/gilead-snaps-ups-german-virology-biotech-myr-nabbing-a-european-approved-hepatitis-d

- Nanobiotix filed to raise a $91M IPO to develop radiotherapeutics in oncology — https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1760854/000114036120027413/nt10009390x9_f1a.htm

- NBE Therapeutics was acquired by Boehringer Ingelheim for up to $1.4B (some upfront and the rest in milestones) to bring on board the company’s pipeline of antibody-drug conjugates (ADC) in oncology — https://www.bioworld.com/articles/501211-boehringer-ingelheim-to-pay-up-to-14b-for-adc-developer-nbe-therapeutics?v=preview

Deals

Number of deals: 1 & Total deal value: $670M

- Atara Biotherapeutics licensed a pair of mesothelin-directed CAR T treatments, ATA-2271 and ATA-3271, to Bayer for $60M up-front with $610M in development, regulatory and commercialization milestone payments. Atara is also eligible for tiered royalties that peak in the low double-digit percentage of net sales of the two drugs. ATA-2271 is an autologous CAR-T in phase I development for high mesothelin-expressing tumors, and a preclinical allogeneic version of the CAR-T called ATA-3271 — https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20201206005066/en/Bayer-and-Atara-Biotherapeutics-Enter-Strategic-Collaboration-for-Mesothelin-Targeted-CAR-T-cell-Therapies-for-Solid-Tumors

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 — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fd_CnRkKOqA