Finance Watch: Flagship Raises $824m To Speed Growth Of Its Portfolio Companies

Private Company Edition: The VC firm and start-up factory Flagship Pioneering brings in new cash for existing investments, tapping into investors eager to back "big, bold platform ideas" in the life sciences. Also, new financings include $100m-plus deals for Harmony and Beam.

Finance Watch

Flagship Pioneering Founder and CEO Noubar Afeyan told Scrip earlier this year that private capital investors' interest in backing "big, bold platform ideas" in the life sciences is increasing, and that proved true recently when Flagship announced that it's raised an additional $824m to accelerate the growth of its portfolio companies.

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Finance Watch: As Stocks Tumble, Offerings Slow, Financial Alternatives Rise

 
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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.

AIRNA To Take RNA Editing Into The Clinic With $155m Series B Round

 
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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.

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Finance Watch: European And Japanese Biotechs See VC Investor Interest In March

 
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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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Boehringer Boss Talks Tariffs And State Of Play In The US

 
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The German firm’s chairman, Hubertus von Baumbach, is adopting a ‘wait-and-see’ approach to the threat of pharma tariffs.

Trump Tariffs – Indian Pharma Dodges Bullet, But Sword Still Hangs?

 
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Trump announced a 26% reciprocal tariff on India but a country-agnostic exemption of pharmaceuticals implies that the interests of Indian firms and the US consumer are protected for now. What is Indian pharma’s business exposure and what is domestic industry saying?

Pharma Exhales, Dodging A Financial Blow With Tariff Exemption

 

Industry lobbied for pharmaceuticals to be exempt from Trump’s sweeping US tariffs and the effort appears to have paid off. J&J, Lilly and Merck & Co. even got shout outs.