US-based genomic medicine developer Precision BioSciences completed a $110m series B round yesterday that included pharmaceutical firms Amgen and EMS, and real estate investment trust Alexandria Real Estate Equities.
Franklin Templeton Investments, Cowen Healthcare Investments, Pontifax AgTech, OCV Partners, Adage Capital Management, Cormorant Asset Management, Gilead Sciences, Vivo Capital, Ridgeback Capital, Agent Capital, VenBio, F-Prime, RA Capital Management, Osage University Partners, Duke Management Company, Longevity Fund and entities affiliated with Leerink Partners also invested.
The corporates participated through their respective investment subsidiaries, Amgen Ventures, Brace Pharma Capital and Alexandria Venture Investments.
Founded in 2006, Precision has developed a genome editing platform intended to be used in immuno-oncology and genetic disease treatments as well as the food industry. It was spun out of Duke University.
The series B capital will go to growing the company’s product portfolio and pushing a CAR-T cancer product into clinical trials, initiating field trials for its food technology and advancing an in vivo gene therapy program into studies supporting an investigational new drug application.
Matt Kane, Precision’s chief executive said: “We are thrilled to have such strong support from these leading healthcare investors who share in our vision for the future of human health through innovations in food and medicine.
“This financing provides us with a strong foundation from which we can advance our translational genome editing programs in multiple sectors.”
VenBio had led Precision’s $25.6m series A round in 2015, investing alongside Amgen Ventures, Osage University Partners, Longevity Fund, F-Prime (then known as Fidelity Bioscience) and Baxter Ventures, part of pharmaceutical firm Baxter International.