Beam Therapeutics, a US-based genetic medicine developer backed by pharmaceutical company Editas Medicine, emerged out of stealth yesterday with $87m in series A funding.
The round was co-led by F-Prime Capital, an investment subsidiary of financial services conglomerate Fidelity, and Arch Venture Partners, the venture capital firm spun out of University of Chicago.
Beam is working on precision genetic medicines using base editing, a technique that enables the precise altering of DNA or RNA base pairs using Crispr genome editing technology.
The spinout is focusing on treatments for a range of serious, unspecified diseases. Its approach relies on repairing mutations, adding protective genetic variations or modulating the expression and functioning of disease-causing genes.
Genomic medicine developer Editas acquired an equity stake in Beam as part of a licensing and option agreement that involved Beam getting access to Editas technologies as well as intellectual property initially licensed to Editas by Harvard University, Broad Institute and Massachusetts General Hospital.
Broad Institute, a biomedical and genomic research centre whose partners include Harvard University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), has separately licensed Repair, its RNA editing platform, to Beam.
The company has also licensed two base editing platforms based on research by David Liu, professor in Harvard University’s Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology. Harvard University will receive a multimillion-dollar upfront payment as part of its licensing agreement, though terms are confidential.
– The original version of this article appeared on our sister site, Global University Venturing.