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☆ This biotech startup wants to prevent unhappiness. Here's the pitch deck Matter Bioscience used to raise $26 million.
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-26 | by ( Rebecca Torrence | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Read previewAxel Bouchon cofounded Matter Neuroscience in 2019 after leading the venture arms of pharma giants Moderna and Bayer. AdvertisementMatter has emerged from stealth with $26 million from ARCH Venture Partners, Polaris Partners, Exor Ventures, and Collaborative Fund, Business Insider has learned exclusively. That $26 million includes an initial seed round led by Polaris Partners and a Series A round led by ARCH Venture Partners. The startup views itself now as a consumer biotech startup, Bouchon said. Here's the 17-slide pitch deck Matter used to raise $26 million.

Persons: —, Axel Bouchon, Bouchon Organizations: Service, pharma, Moderna, Bayer, Business, Venture Partners, Polaris Partners, Exor Ventures, Fund, Brain Imaging, Icahn School of Medicine Locations: Maastricht, Netherlands, Mount Sinai, Seoul, South Korea

☆ SoftBank-backed Neumora valued at $2.51 billion in lukewarm debut
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-15 | by ( Jaiveer Shekhawat | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

Sept 15 (Reuters) - Shares of Neumora Therapeutics (NMRA.O), which is backed by Amgen (AMGN.O) and Japan's SoftBank (9984.T), fell in their market debut on Friday, giving the company a market capitalization of $2.51 billion. The ongoing surge in listings points to a nascent recovery in the U.S. IPO market amid growing expectations of a pause in interest rate hikes by the Federal Reserve. Neumora, which is developing drugs for brain diseases, raised $250 million by selling 14.7 million shares priced at the mid-point of its previously disclosed range. Neumora's debut comes a day after Arm Holdings' strong debut valued the chip designer at more than $60 billion. "Neumora opened up trading slightly below the IPO price, but taken in context with RayzeBio ... market sentiment for established, later-stage biotech IPOs appears strong," Mullin added.

Persons: Japan's SoftBank, Neumora, Riley Mullin, Mullin, Jaiveer Shekhawat, Pritam Biswas, Shounak Dasgupta Organizations: Neumora Therapeutics, Nasdaq, Federal Reserve, Arm Holdings, Renaissance Capital, Arch Venture Partners, Thomson Locations: Watertown , Massachusetts, U.S, Bengaluru

☆ 6 startups that have raised $100 million or more in 2023 to change healthcare
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-11 | by ( Yeji Jesse Lee | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

The healthcare-staffing startup ShiftKey raised $300 million in a round led by its majority investor Lorient Capital. The clinical-trials-tech startup Paradigm raised a $203 million Series A round led by Arch Venture Partners and General Catalyst. The healthcare-staffing startup ShiftMed raised a $200 million round led by Panoramic Ventures. raised a $200 million round led by Panoramic Ventures. Vytalize Health, a startup that helps doctors provide value-based care, raised $100 million from Enhanced Healthcare Partners, Monroe Capital, and North Coast Ventures.

☆ See the 6 startups that have raised the most cash in 2023 to transform healthcare
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-05 | by ( Yeji Jesse Lee | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Startups in the industry raised $3.4 billion across 132 deals in the first three months of 2023. The healthcare-staffing startup ShiftKey raised $300 million in a round led by its majority investor Lorient Capital. The clinical-trials-tech startup Paradigm raised a $203 million Series A round led by Arch Venture Partners and General Catalyst. The healthcare-staffing startup ShiftMed raised a $200 million round led by Panoramic Ventures. raised a $200 million round led by Panoramic Ventures.

☆ Venture Capital Investors Are Trying to Take Over Pandemic Response
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-12 | by ( Adam Rogers | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +19 min

Private capital has been eyeing public health for years. Several founders and investors told me that the failure of Kleiner's fund made Silicon Valley wary of investing in pandemic preparedness. Venture investors love that kind of thing. Public health and private industryWhen COVID hit, Charity Dean was the assistant director of the California Department of Public Health. In the end, almost every pandemic-related product created by Silicon Valley will ultimately require the government as a primary customer.

☆ U.S. regulators rejected Elon Musk’s bid to test brain chips in humans, citing safety risks
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-02 | by ( Rachael Levy | Marisa Taylor | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +19 min

Companies that do secure human-testing approval typically conduct at least two rounds of trials before applying for FDA approval to commercially market a device. "Everybody in the industry was saying: 'Oh my God, they're going to run straight into a brick wall,'" Ludwig said of Musk's bid for FDA approval. For example, NeuroPace, which makes the brain implant to treat epilepsy, received final FDA approval in 2013 – 16 years after the company's launch. Beyond grants, it provides access to government experts who advise on how to gain FDA approval and commercialize a device. Musk's emails to Neuralink staffers often come from his SpaceX address, said two people who reviewed them.

☆ U.S. regulators rejected Elon Musk’s bid to test brain chips in humans
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-02 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +23 min

Musk’s missed deadlines for FDA approval of Neuralink July 2019:Musk says Neuralink is aiming to receive regulatory approval for human trials of brain implants by the end of 2020. “Everybody in the industry was saying: ‘Oh my God, they’re going to run straight into a brick wall,’” Ludwig said of Musk’s bid for FDA approval. For example, NeuroPace, which makes the brain implant to treat epilepsy, received final FDA approval in 2013 – 16 years after the company’s launch. The FDA’s concerns about the battery are also potentially serious, experts in brain devices said. Still, that proposal disappointed Neuralink because it could delay progress toward final FDA approval, one of the sources said.

☆ CRISPR pioneer Feng Zhang plans to 'break open the barrier' facing gene editing after raising $193 million for his secretive new startup
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-16 | by ( Andrew Dunn | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Feng Zhang, Aera's founder and a CRISPR pioneer, spoke with Insider about his vision for the firm. Aera wants to "break open the barrier" of tech through methods like gene editing, Zhang said. The CRISPR pioneer Feng Zhang spoke with Insider about Aera Therapeutics, his Boston-based biotech. "The goal is to break open the barrier that's facing genetic medicine," Zhang told Insider in his first interview about the company. In starting another company, Zhang said he felt it was important to have a dedicated team focused on delivery.

☆ CRISPR pioneer Feng Zhang's secretive gene-editing startup has hired ex-Alnylam leaders as CEO and chair
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-07 | by ( Andrew Dunn | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

The gene-editing startup Aera has hired biotech vets Akin Akinc as CEO and John Maraganore as chairman. CRISPR pioneer Feng Zhang's newest gene-editing venture has attracted two longtime leaders of the biotech giant Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Insider has learned. Former Alnylam CEO John Maraganore is chairman of Aera. The SEND technology could allow gene-editing technology to treat more diseases. Based on Zhang's SEND research, Aera hopes to deliver gene-editing tools to more organs, ultimately expanding the number of diseases CRISPR can impact.

☆ EQRx promised to deliver cutting-edge drugs at half the cost of rivals. A cofounder shares why the once buzzy biotech is walking away from that mission
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-19 | by ( Andrew Dunn | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

After years of touting the idea of radically lower drug prices, EQRx has walked away from that plan. Cofounder Alexis Borisy said it was due to the FDA not OK'ing drugs based only on Chinese data. EQRx suddenly sounded like a typical biotech company, talking of "market-based pricing" that would "maximize value for shareholders." EQRx's stock is down over 75% since its record-breaking SPACAlexis Borisy, EQRx Chairman, and CEO Melanie Nallicheri. An unclear future for 'radically lower drug prices'EQRx CEO Melanie Nallicheri EQRxIn November, EQRx said it wouldn't pursue radically lower pricing for its first two drug candidates, both cancer therapies.

☆ Why tech billionaires like Elon Musk, Bill Gates, and Jeff Bezos are all investing in biotech startups that want to link your computer directly to your brain
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-21 | by ( Andrew Dunn | Hilary Brueck | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +8 min

Tech moguls like Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Bill Gates are investing in brain-implant startups. Through their venture-capital funds, Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates both recently backed the Brooklyn, New York, startup Synchron, which has tested its brain stent in seven humans. Peter Thiel, a billionaire cofounder of PayPal, invested last year in Utah's Blackrock Neurotech, an older BCI startup that has said it hopes to apply for Food and Drug Administration approval soon. That long-term potential has caught the attention of tech billionaires like Musk, Gates, and Bezos. No BCI startup has gone public, and most of their fundraising rounds have been modest compared with larger and more-mature biotechs.

☆ A former Harvard chemist just raised $178 million for a biotech startup that plans to treat previously untreatable cancers
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-21 | by ( Andrew Dunn | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

The biotech FogPharma has raised $178 million in a Series D round. The longtime Harvard chemist Greg Verdine founded Fog to tackle "undruggable" cancers. Fog's drugs, known as polypeptides or short fragments of proteins, blur the line between small molecules and biologics, sharing characteristics of both types of medicines. Verdine calls it "the magic structure" for Fog's drugs. "I thought he'd be able to find things that bind, but I was very skeptical that he could turn them into drugs," Klausner told Insider.

☆ Prime Medicine dipped 10% in its public debut. We dug through the biotech's 283-page filing to find 5 key takeaways about the company's plan to commercialize gene editing.
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-20 | by ( Andrew Dunn | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +8 min

The gene-editing biotech Prime Medicine went public on Thursday. From a key patent to an uncertain timeline, here are five takeaways from Prime's filing. Its goal is to advance prime editing, a twist on CRISPR gene editing that could allow for a wider range of edits to DNA. Prime editing, another version of next-generation gene editing, works like a word processor, "searching for the correct location and replacing or repairing a wide variety of target DNA," the filing said. Jessica Rinaldi/The Boston Globe via Getty ImagesDavid Liu, a Harvard gene-editing scientist who co-invented base editing and prime editing, is Prime's largest shareholder.

Insider found 16 pioneers in the world of biotech venture capital who are shaping the industry. But new investors are joining the ranks of biotech venture capitalists every day, and they're bringing new ideas with them. Insider set out to identify the rising stars writing biotech's next chapter and ended up with a wide-ranging group of 16 investors shaping the industry. According to these people, the 16 names on this list represent some of the brightest minds in the VC world and are using their intellect to shake things up. Here are the 16 rising stars of biotech investing, according to investors, academics, and entrepreneurs.

☆ CRISPR pioneer Feng Zhang is building a secretive new startup to solve gene-editing's biggest problem — getting into more parts of the body
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-12 | by ( Andrew Dunn | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

CRISPR pioneer Feng Zhang is building a new gene-editing startup, Insider has learned. CRISPR pioneer Feng Zhang is in the process of launching yet another ambitious gene-editing startup, backed by approximately $200 million from some of biotech's biggest investors, Insider has exclusively learned. Aera was incorporated in September 2021, shortly after Zhang's research was published in Science. Aera is at least the seventh startup Zhang has cofounded, joining a list that includes base-editing biotech Beam Therapeutics, CRISPR company Editas Medicine, and gene-editing startup Arbor Biotechnologies. While the ARC protein seems tailored for brain delivery, Zhang's suite of proteins could reach other organs, Shepherd said.

☆ Prime Medicine is gearing up for a $200 million IPO. We dug through the biotech's 282-page filing to find 5 key takeaways about the company's plan to commercialize gene editing.
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-28 | by ( Andrew Dunn | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +8 min

From an uncertain timeline to the clinic to a key patent, here are 5 takeaways from Prime's filing. The company's goal is to advance prime editing, a twist on CRISPR gene editing that could allow for a wider range of edits to DNA. Prime editing is another version of next-generation gene editing. Prime's filing comes in a difficult market for biotechs, but particularly for companies that have yet to start human testing. Jessica Rinaldi/The Boston Globe via Getty ImagesDavid Liu, a Harvard gene-editing scientist who co-invented base editing and prime editing, is currently Prime's largest shareholder.

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