Four Local Biotechs Attract Investor Funding

Echoing a nationwide trend, local life sciences companies continue to attract record funding as investors respond to the industry’s recent pandemic-fueled successes and heightened visibility:

Since launching a year ago, Cambridge-based EQRx has raised approximately $750M including a recent $500M Series B financing to advance its mission of bringing new medicines to patients and healthcare systems around the world at prices that are a fraction of the cost of today’s leading therapies. EQRx is building a highly competitive pipeline of important new drug candidates to address diseases like cancer and inflammatory conditions that combined are projected to represent nearly 40% of the drug spend among the highest cost diseases globally by 2025. The company estimates that its broad pipeline of innovative therapies has the potential to save the U.S. healthcare system between 50-70% of its current drug spend across the respective therapeutic areas. (Source: EQRx Website, 11 January, 2021)

Boston startup Scorpion Therapeutics recently closed an oversubscribed Series B financing, which raised $162M. With this financing, Scorpion has raised approximately $270M since the company was founded in the first quarter of 2020. Proceeds from the financing will be used to support the continued development of Scorpion’s drug hunting engine, which integrates state-of-the-art capabilities across multiple fields of translational medicine, chemical biology, medicinal chemistry, and data science, as well as the advancement of Scorpion’s growing portfolio, which includes several therapeutic candidates across a range of biological approaches for tumor targeting. (Source: Scorpion Therapeutics Website, 07 January, 2021)

Cambridge Gene Writing pioneer Tessera Therapeutics has raised over $230M in Series B financing. Gene Writing is a new technology enabling scientists and clinicians to write small and large therapeutic messages into the genome, thereby curing diseases at their source. Tessera will use the latest round of funding to accelerate research and development in the company’s Gene Writing technologies, expand its team, establish manufacturing and automation capabilities critical for its platform and programs, and enhance the company’s ability to position multiple therapeutic programs for clinical development. (Source: Tessera Therapeutics Website, 12 January, 2021)

Waltham biotech newbie Mana Therapeutics has launched with a $35M Series A financing. Mana is using its proprietary platform to develop a pipeline of off-the-shelf cell therapies for cancer patients across a broad range of liquid and solid tumors, with an initial focus on relapsed acute myeloid leukemia (AML). Mana’s platform leverages natural immune system pathways to educate T-cells to target multiple cell surface and intracellular tumor-associated antigens without the need for viral or non-viral delivery systems or genetic modifications. (Source: Mana Therapeutics Website, 08 January, 2021)