Moderna Therapeutics LLC continues to confound biopharmaceutical industry observers by staying private, yet raising extremely large amounts of money from investors who want whatever it is that the messenger RNA (mRNA) therapeutics developer is selling, including a new $500m equity round.
Finance Watch: Another Mega-Round As Moderna Bucks Biopharma's IPO Trend
Moderna raised $500m to fund its growing pipeline, choosing once again to stay private rather than pursue an IPO. Also, AvroBio closed a $60m Series B round to advance its gene therapies for lysosomal storage disorders, Seattle Genetics led recent public company financings, and Vical is restructuring.

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Public Company Edition: Stock valuations are falling due to political, economic and regulatory uncertainty, resulting in fewer large public offerings, more alternative financings and cost cuts. Carisma, Tenaya, BioAtla, Arbutus, Nkarta, Alector and Adaptimmune announced layoffs.
CEO Kris Elverum told Scrip about the start-up’s platform for editing RNA to correct genetic variants that cause harm and to reproduce healthy variants as a means of treating disease.
The four-year-old firm said it plans to advance programs toward the clinic from the funding round, which comes just over a year after signing two major pharma partnerships.
Private Company Edition: The latest group of drug developers to announce venture capital financings is remarkable for its geographic diversity, from Character Biosciences’ $93m series B round in the US to Augustine’s $85m series B in Belgium to a $29.2m series C for Aculys in Japan.
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