Get these analyses to your inbox — https://axialfc.substack.com/ This is a newsletter for new financing events with some simple analysis. More well thought out work can be found at — https://axial.substack.com/ I figured that there is a diversity across desire for frequency of emails.

Axial invests and partners in early-stage life sciences companies. If you or someone you know has a great idea or company in life sciences, Axial would be excited to get to know you and possibly invest in your vision and company — info@axialsprawl.com

Life Sciences Financings and Commentary #3 — April 11, 2020 — April 17, 2020

Financings

Number of deals: 19 & Total capital invested: $705M

- 54gene raised $15M led by Adjuvant Capital. The company is building a business model similar to 23andMe — https://axial.substack.com/p/axial-23andme with a focus on Africa — https://techcrunch.com/2020/04/14/african-genomics-startup-54gene-raises-15m-led-by-adjuvant-capital/

- Alnylam Pharmaceuticals is a public company but their recent financing from Blackstone is noteworthy. Blackstone invested $100M in equity capital with $1B for half the royalties on inclisiran, up to $750M in loans, and $150M for an R&D pact that’s still being negotiated. This financing is another signal that more sophisticated capital markets (i.e. layered debt) is coming to life sciences.

- Atlas AI raised $7M led by Airbus Ventures. The company’s core product ingests agricultural and economic data to measure/monitor economic progress across the globe.

- Avectas raised $20M led by Seamus Mulligan. The company focuses on cell therapy manufacturing with its Solupore technology for “transient permeabilization of the cell membrane, enabling diffusion of cargo into the cell.”

- ByHeart raised $70M led by Polaris Partners, D1 Capital Partners, and OCV Partners to push its infant formula through clinical studies.

- Cerevance raised $45M led by GV, Bill Gates, and Foresite Capital. The business collects samples from brain banks around the world with over “7,000 control and diseased tissue samples from over 50 different brain regions and across eight decades of donor ages.” Cerevance uses its NETSseq to sequence neurons and microglia in these samples to find new targets for CNS disorders. The company already has a phase II program for Parkinson’s disease — https://www.fiercebiotech.com/biotech/bill-gates-gv-chip-into-45m-round-for-cns-biotech-cerevance

- Clever Leaves International raised $14M to manufacture pharmaceutical-grade medical cannabis and hemp extracts.

- Crop Enhancement raised $8M led by Spruce Capital Partners to further develop its CropCoat product to increase crop yields. CropCoat “uses nontoxic formulations to shield crops from pests and environmental damage.”

- Darmiyan raised $6M led by Eisai to work on early diagnosis of Alzheimer’s (AD). The product, BrainSee, analyzes MRI images and claim to map around the brain’s microstructure to predict onset of AD.

- Dianosic raised €1.5M from a European consortium to launch their CAVIT product in Europe to treat intranasal bleeding.

- Etern raised 100 million yuan co-led by Apricot Capital and TF Capital to develop small molecule medicines for oncology — https://www.dealstreetasia.com/stories/china-digest-xiaoduoai-etern-184059/

- Mabworks raised ~$150M led by CICC Qide Innovative Biopharmaceutical Equity Investment Fund. The company develops monoclonal antibodies. The company’s core product is a biosimilar of bevacizumab (MIL60), a human anti-VEGF neutralizing antibody.

- Moma Therapeutics raised $86M led by Third Rock Ventures. The company is discovering drugs for molecular machines, particularly helicases. The latter unwind nucleic acids and for DNA, make it single-stranded so it can be copied. Drugging helicases has the potential to add to the synthetic lethality toolkit by disrupting genomic repair in cancer — https://www.fiercebiotech.com/biotech/moma-therapeutics-aims-at-molecular-machines-86m-raise

- Perspectum Diagnostics raised $36M with BlueCross BlueShield Venture Partners and HealthQuest Capital co-leading the round. The core product is an image analysis tool to diagnose and monitor liver disease.

- RefleXion Medical raised $100M led by Public Sector Pension Investment Board. The company’s core product is their own machine to collect anatomic data from computed tomography (CT) and functional imaging data from positron emission tomography (PET) to detect cancerous cells and guide radiation treatment in real time. The capital is being used for product commercialization — https://reflexion.com/press-releases/fda-clearance-brings-reflexion-closer-to-expanding/

- RDMD raised $14M led by Spark Capital. The company is building a clinical network to help with recruitment of rare disease patients. The business model could evolve to be similar to Flatiron Health.

- Smile Formula raised $1.42M led by Global Founders Capital. The product is an orthodontic platform that connects authorized orthodontists and users through remote dental diagnosis. This enables users to get preliminary review of professional orthodontists, do online booking of 3D mouth scan time and location, and get private customized correction programs.

- Vida Diagnostics raised $2M led by OSF Ventures. Vida’s LungPrint product analyzes images from CT scans to diagnose lung diseases like COPD.

- Yes Health raised $6M led by Khosla Ventures. Yes is developing a digital weight loss and diabetes prevent product. Virta Health is the behemoth in the field though.

Exits

Number of exits: 2 & Total exit value: Undisclosed (i.e. very low)

- The Patient Handling Europe division of Handicare, which focuses on products for patients with limited mobility, was acquired by Direct Healthcare Group (ArchiMed) for an undisclosed amount.

- SCI Solutions was bought by R1 RCM for an undisclosed amount. SCI has a product focused on outpatient scheduling.

I used to play football a long time ago — I had some decent success mainly because of my teammates with some of them playing in the NFL. Every practice, every game was an existential fight. I’m not that athletic so every year some 6’4 monster would show up trying to take my spot. Similarly, all of these companies are fighting for their right to exist whether they raised $1M or $100M. Building a great business requires passion and focus. A really powerful and useful framework to lead groups of people and win was developed by Bill Walsh — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fd_CnRkKOqA