Benchling adds another megaround into the fold, looking even more unicorn-y as a possible IPO approaches

Sajith Wickramasekara, Benchling CEO

Tout­ing its mis­sion to rev­o­lu­tion­ize R&D by bring­ing drug de­vel­op­ment in­to the cloud, Bench­ling has earned its uni­corn horn from in­vestors hun­gry for some­thing new. A new round of fi­nanc­ing will now dri­ve that eye-pop­ping val­u­a­tion even high­er.

Just sev­en months af­ter rais­ing $200 mil­lion from in­vestors in a Se­ries E, valu­ing the R&D cloud soft­ware de­vel­op­er at just over $4 bil­lion in April, Bench­ling raised $100 mil­lion in a Se­ries F round, valu­ing the com­pa­ny at a tidy $6.1 bil­lion. And this doesn’t take in­to con­sid­er­a­tion that Bench­ling was worth un­der $1 bil­lion last April, ac­cord­ing to Forbes — just af­ter the Covid-19 pan­dem­ic hit the world stage.

The round was co-led by US in­vest­ment firm Franklin Tem­ple­ton — a new in­vestor in­to Bench­ling along­side ex­ist­ing in­vestor Al­time­ter Cap­i­tal. New in­vestors Tiger Glob­al and Lone Pine Cap­i­tal joined in on the ac­tion, as well as ex­ist­ing in­vestors.

Bench­ling will use the fund­ing to con­tin­ue in­vest­ing in prod­uct de­vel­op­ment and glob­al ex­pan­sion, the com­pa­ny said in a state­ment yes­ter­day, and specif­i­cal­ly fo­cus on ex­pand­ing its pres­ence in Eu­rope, the Mid­dle East and Africa af­ter an­nounc­ing in Jan­u­ary that it opened its EMEA head­quar­ters in Zurich.

Her’e a brief re­cap of the com­pa­ny’s fi­nanc­ing rounds:

$7 mil­lion Se­ries A in 2016

 $14.5 mil­lion Se­ries B in 2018

 $34.5 mil­lion Se­ries C in 2019

 $50 mil­lion Se­ries D in May 2020

 $200 mil­lion Se­ries E in April

Since an­nounc­ing the Se­ries E raise, Bench­ling has ex­pand­ed — now in­clud­ing sup­port for ear­ly-stage drug de­vel­op­ment and RNA ther­a­peu­tics, adding new peo­ple to its C-suite and adding Eu­ro­pean busi­ness­es to its clien­tele, in­clud­ing Cutiss AG, Sanofi, Se­lex­is SA, and Syn­gen­ta.

Some of Bench­ling’s oth­er high-pro­file clients in­clude Gilead, Re­gen­eron and Eli Lil­ly, ac­cord­ing to Bloomberg.

And ac­cord­ing to Bench­ling’s co-founder and CEO Sajith Wick­ra­masekara, Bench­ling plans to ex­pand even more.

‘With this new in­vest­ment, we’ll con­tin­ue grow­ing our teams and cus­tomer base in the US and Eu­rope,’ Wick­ra­masekara said in a state­ment. ‘We’ll al­so keep broad­en­ing our plat­form’s ca­pa­bil­i­ties to sup­port our cus­tomers’ full prod­uct life­cy­cle, from re­search through to de­vel­op­ment and man­u­fac­tur­ing.’

For years, paper-based processes and individual point solutions dominated the clinical research landscape, and patient participation in clinical trials was largely an in-person engagement. But when the COVID-19 pandemic took a stronghold, traditional clinical trial methods emerged as inadequate, putting clinical trials and the life sciences industry at a crossroads. Practically overnight, the industry had to rapidly shift to decentralized clinical trial methods, while maintaining data quality and regulatory compliance.

Douglas Fambrough, Dicerna CEO (Dicerna via YouTube)

Early this year researchers at Novo Nordisk were beaming as they announced the first drug identified in their RNAi alliance with Dicerna was headed into the clinic. And now they’re coming back for the whole thing.

This morning the Copenhagen-based pharma giant put out word that it is buying Dicerna $DRNA — an RNAi pioneer that has had its up and downs over the years — for $3.3 billion. Novo is paying $38.25 a share — an 80% premium.

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Jean-Jacques Bienaimé (BioMarin via Youtube)

The FDA on Friday signed off on an accelerated approval for Biomarin’s Voxzogo (vosoritide) injection, the first treatment to target the underlying genetics of dwarfism, which can increase the height of children five years of age and older with the condition.

The injection, first approved in Europe with a $300,000 annual price tag, works by binding to a specific receptor called natriuretic peptide receptor-B, which reduces the growth regulation gene’s activity and stimulates bone growth in children.

The European Medicines Agency on Friday said that Merck’s antiviral molnupiravir can now be used to treat adults with Covid-19 who do not require supplemental oxygen and who are at increased risk of developing severe disease.

The pill, known commercially in Europe as Lagevrio, has not yet been authorized in the US and has to be taken twice a day for 5 days. The EMA said it should be administered as soon as possible after diagnosis of Covid, and within 5 days of the start of symptoms. The quick authorization is based on data showing the drug reduced the chance that a newly diagnosed Covid-19 patient would be hospitalized or die by 50%, according to data presented by the company in October.

The House on Friday morning passed a bill that will allow Medicare to negotiate prescription drug prices for a limited number of single source drugs, but it’s a deal that will only make a minor dent in the pocketbook of the biopharma industry.

The negotiations and other pricing provisions, like insulin and senior out-of-pocket caps, are part of a sprawling $1.8 trillion spending package that the Democrats and Biden have been pushing for all summer. The bill, which relies on the pharma-related savings to help pay for it, now moves to the Senate.

Peter Marks (Jim Lo Scalzo/Pool via AP Images)

All US adults who received two doses of an mRNA Covid-19 vaccine are now eligible for a booster shot, the FDA announced Friday.

The moves will amend the existing EUAs for the Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna boosters, which had previously been limited to immunocompromised individuals, those older than 65 and adults at high risk for severe disease through certain comorbidities or occupational exposure. For Moderna in particular, the booster shots come in a half-dose of the original vaccine series — 50 µg instead of 100 µg — while Pfizer’s remains at 30 µg for each shot.

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Gilead is going all in — hook, line and sinker — on its oncology alliance with Arcus. And they are going for broke.

The big biotech unveiled a deal that now delivers $725 million in opt-in payments covering the clinical development programs for Arcus, ranging from their closely watched anti-TIGIT programs for domvanalimab and AB308 to etrumadenant (the A2a/A2b adenosine receptor antagonist) and quemliclustat, the small molecule CD73 inhibitor. Gilead will also cover half of the development costs, handing Terry Rosen’s biotech a deal that gives them a clear cash runway to achieving all its goals in oncology.

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NK cell biotech Cytovia and gene editing firm Cellectis are expanding upon their previous team-up.

The two biotechs announced yesterday they have expanded their collaboration of gene-edited, iPSC-derived NK and CAR-NK cells to include new CAR targets and development in China by Cytovia’s joint venture entity, CytoLynx Therapeutics.

The amended deal, which was originally agreed to in February, now includes a $20 million equity stake in Cytovia stock by Cellectis, up from $15 million, alongside up to $805 million in milestones and royalty payments.

Last week, Bristol Myers Squibb marched out long-term data for its heart drug mavacamten ahead of what execs had hoped would be a positive FDA decision in January. But regulators are saying they need a bit more time to think.

The FDA has extended mavacamten’s PDUFA date three months, from Jan. 28 to April 28, Bristol Myers announced on Friday. The news came just a few days after independent drug pricing watchdog ICER raised concerns about the candidate’s long-term safety in its final evidence report.
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