Start-Ups & SMEs

Private Company Edition: Two companies raised multiple hundreds of millions of dollars each helping to keep the number of $100m-plus venture capital mega-rounds on the rise in May. Also, Ascend raised $132.5m to make gene and cell therapies, and Nido emerged with $109m for neurological diseases.

ReNAgade Therapeutics came out of stealth mode with $300m to fund its proprietary technology for delivery of RNA medicines – including coding, editing and gene insertion modalities – beyond the liver.

X4 Pharma has shown that cutting back and focusing on a lead asset can work but mavorixafor’s first-in-class status and efficacy profile is not common.

The congress’s late breakers highlight progress across cell and gene platforms and diseases, and Duchenne is in the spotlight as Sarepta’s SRP-9001 could soon gain accelerated approval.

The proceeds from the series A will be used to progress Dualyx’s preclinical program DT-001, which targets "the highly attractive TNF receptor 2 (TNFR2), widely regarded as a master control switch in immune modulation."

The rare disease drug launch continues to outperform expectations, though questions remain about demand and how long patients will remain on the treatment.

Private Company Edition: Venture capital mega-rounds of $100m or more held steady in April after a slow January and February then a surge in March, but VC fundraising is down overall this year. In recent raises, Enveda series B expanded to $119m, Vedanta brought in $106.5m and Convergent raised $90m.

Hasten brought in $315m, and Orbital garnered $270m, but while multiple venture firms have raised large new funds, Q1 saw the lowest amount of biopharma VC fundraising in a single quarter since 2019.

Universities and venture capital firms have produced guidance that they hope will accelerate and support the founding of a new generation of start-ups.

The Netherlands and Germany-based VC firm wants to help out public and private companies who have undervalued late-stage assets and are struggling to raise new funds.

The Munich-based firm has landed a big pharma partner in Bristol Myers Squibb, claiming the deal validates the potential of its approach in developing next-generation antibody-drug conjugates.

Private Company Edition: Forbion closed two funds totaling €1.35bn ($1.5bn) and Glide Healthcare raised €600m ($657.5m) for its latest fund, joining recent venture capital raises by Lux Capital and Wellington Management, but in the first quarter biopharma VC company financings fell dramatically.