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Caris Life Sciences has raised nearly $1.7B to date
In terms of best-funded companies overall, Caris Life Sciences came in on top with close to $1.7 billion in total funding. Founded in 2008, the company’s most recent funding was a senior secured term loan on January 19, 2023 that provided up to $400 million in capital from OrbiMed and Braidwell. Next in line was the cell and gene therapy technology company ElevateBio, whose most recent funding was a $401 million Series D financing on May 24, 2023. It was founded in 2017. Rounding out the top three is Eikon Therapeutics, which raised $106 million in a Series C funding round on June 1, 2023. Eikon was founded in 2019.
Noted industry veterans are at the helm of Eikon Therapeutics. Dr. Roger Perlmutter, a former president of Merck Research Laboratories, joined Eikon Therapeutics as its CEO after leaving Merck at the end of 2020. While the company itself was founded in 2014 by Robert Tjian, Luke Lavis, Xavier Darzacq, and Eric Betzig, who is a cowinners of the 2014 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
The fourth company on the list, SHINE Technologies, is not a pure-play life sciences company, but is focused on fusion technology. Based in Janesville, Wisconsin, it is, however, developing medical isotopes and radiopharmaceuticals for cancer treatment. In October 2023, it scored $70 million in additional funding in a convertible note round.
Rounding out the top five is Generate Biomedicines, which generated $273 million in Series C financing on September 14, 2023. The company plans on using the funding to advance its machine-learning-powered generative biology platform, which is focused on developing preclinical and clinical protein therapies.
50 of the best-funded biotechs of 2023
The following table captures cumulative funding totals for 50 of well-resourced biotechs. It was limited to companies that had raised capital in 2023. The list does not distinguish between funding types, and thus includes both equity financing and debt financing. Data was sourced from Crunchbase, which tracks startup activities and funding data. There is little overlap in this list in a prior roundup of 30 innovative biotechs from August.
| Company | Total funding amount (in USD) | Last funding date | Headquarters | Description |
| Caris Life Sciences | $1,690,000,000 | January 19, 2023 | Irving, Texas |
Caris Life Sciences is a molecular science and technology company.
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| ElevateBio | $1,246,000,000 | May 24, 2023 | Waltham, Massachusetts | ElevateBio focuses on enabling the development of transformative cell and gene therapies. It operates as a platform company, providing end-to-end capabilities to support the development, manufacturing, and commercialization of cell and gene therapies. |
| Eikon Therapeutics | $772,000,000 | June 1, 2023 | Hayward, California |
Focuses on developing drugs through the use of high-resolution live-cell imaging and artificial intelligence to understand protein dynamics in human cells.
|
| SHINE Technologies | $742,211,946 | October 11, 2023 | Janesville, Wisconsin |
This fusion technology company also is developing radiopharmaceuticals for cancer treatment.
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| Generate Biomedicines | $693,000,000 | September 14, 2023 | Somerville, Massachusetts |
Uses machine learning and computational biology to design and generate novel proteins for use in drugs, diagnostics, and other biological applications.
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| Metagenomi | $456,973,182 | January 05, 2023 | Emeryville, California |
Metagenomi uses metagenomics and machine learning to discover novel genome editing systems for therapy.
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| Battelle | $422,100,000 | November 8, 2023 | Columbus, Ohio |
Battelle is an independent research and development organization.
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| Cellares | $355,000,000 | August 23, 2023 | South San Francisco, California |
Cellares has developed an automation platform known as the Cell Shuttle to overcome manufacturing challenges in cell and gene therapy.
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| AmplifyBio | $279,750,000 | November 15, 2023 | West Jefferson, Ohio |
AmplifyBio develops next-generation cell and gene therapies.
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| Orbital Therapeutics | $270,000,000 | April 26, 2023 | Cambridge, Massachusetts |
Develops RNA-based RNA medicines.
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| MapLight Therapeutics | $268,099,999 | October 30, 2023 | Palo Alto, California |
MapLight Therapeutics offers a platform for discovering and developing therapeutics for brain disorders.
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| Chroma Medicine | $260,000,000 | March 1, 2023 | Cambridge, Massachusetts |
This genomic medicine company works on epigenetic editing.
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| Genesis Therapeutics | $256,100,000 | August 21, 2023 | South San Francisco, California | Specializes in AI-backed drug discovery, focusing on novel protein targets and untapped chemical spaces. |
| Septerna | $250,000,000 | July 11, 2023 | San Francisco |
Focused on developing next-gen G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs).
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| Rapport Therapeutics | $250,000,000 | August 23, 2023 | Boston |
Rapport Therapeutics is a private biotech focusing on treating neurological disorders through precision medicine. It specializes in using receptor-associated proteins (RAPs) to create precision neuromedicines.
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| Terremoto Biosciences | $250,000,000 | November 2, 2023 | San Francisco |
Focuses on exploring lysine-based covalency to develop novel therapeutics.
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| Alto Neuroscience | $246,984,032 | November 27, 2023 | Los Altos, California |
Uses an AI-enabled biomarker platform to develop therapies for mental health conditions.
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| Aiolos Bio | $245,000,000 | October 24, 2023 | San Francisco |
Focuses on developing therapies for respiratory diseases. It has more than 30 FDA approvals to date.
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| Asimov | $205,000,000 | January 5, 2023 | Boston |
Asimov creates tools for programming living cells. The company has developed a synthetic biology platform for biologics, cell/gene therapies, and RNA.
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| ENTEROME | $200,731,154 | October 30, 2023 | Paris, France |
The company’s OncoMimic technology aims to overcome immune tolerance against cancer cells.
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| Metabolon | $199,703,977 | January 24, 2023 | Morrisville, North Carolina |
Specializes in metabolomics, the study of metabolites, which are the small molecule chemicals involved in metabolism within cells and biological systems.
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| ROME Therapeutics | $199,000,000 | September 12, 2023 | Cambridge, Massachusetts |
Focuses on developing novel therapies for cancer and autoimmune diseases by researching the repeatome, the repetitive sections of the human genome.
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| VectorY | $175,313,414 | November 13, 2023 | Amsterdam |
VectorY is a fully integrated gene therapy company.
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| Enveda Biosciences | $174,900,000 | April 20, 2023 | Boulder, Colorado |
This biotech develops plant-based therapies.
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| Fore Biotherapeutics | $166,500,000 | August 23, 2023 | Philadelphia |
This precision oncology company uses its functional genomics platform to explore unaddressed tumor mutations.
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| Aro Biotherapeutics | $166,500,000 | November 28, 2023 | Philadelphia |
Develops tissue-targeted genetic medicines with a platform based on a proprietary protein technology called Centyrins.
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| BenchSci | $164,160,477 | May 25, 2023 | Toronto, Ontario, Canada |
Has AI offerings to support scientists in running drug discovery experiments.
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| Evozyne | $144,367,382 | September 27, 2023 | Chicago |
Evozyne is a generative AI company that focuses on therapeutic discovery and drug development.
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| Nouscom | $134,635,870 | November 14, 2023 | Basel, Switzerland |
Nouscom is a biotechnology company specializing in the development of cancer immunotherapies, including personalized cancer vaccines based on neoantigens and viral vectors.
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| Eyebiotech | $130,000,000 | November 14, 2023 | New York City |
Eyebiotech is a privately held ophthalmology biotechnology company.
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| Octave | $128,000,069 | November 24, 2023 | Menlo Park, California |
Octave is developing a clinical platform for multiple sclerosis treatment.
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| Rampart Bioscience | $125,000,000 | October 24, 2023 | La Jolla, California |
Develops gene medicines to provide treatments for an array range of diseases.
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| Pendulum Therapeutics | $121,200,000 | June 9, 2023 | San Francisco |
Focuses on developing microbiome-related products for the management of chronic diseases and overall health.
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| ZAGENO | $121,000,000 | May 25, 2023 | Cambridge, Massachusetts |
The companyis a multi-supplier marketplace for life science products.
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| Inceptive | $120,000,000 | September 7, 2023 | Palo Alto, California |
Inceptive designs RNA molecules using large-scale deep learning in a tight loop with high-throughput.
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| Ray Therapeutics | $114,000,000 | November 13, 2023 | San Diego |
Ray Therapeutics creates novel optogenetic gene therapies for patients with blinding diseases.
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| Universal Diagnostics | $112,552,860 | November 20, 2023 | Seville, Andalucia, Spain |
This Spanish in-vitro diagnostics company develops non-invasive blood tests for early detection of cancer.
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| On Target Laboratories | $111,700,000 | November 16, 2023 | Northbrook, Illinois |
Discovers and develops tumor-targeted fluorescent dyes for cancer surgery.
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| MBrace Therapeutics | $110,000,000 | November 14, 2023 | San Diego |
MBrace Therapeutics is a privately held biopharmaceutical business dedicated to improving cancer patient care.
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| DermBiont | $108,481,329 | October 19, 2023 | Boston |
Develops skin microbiome therapeutics to treat skin diseases and conditions.
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| Engine Biosciences | $103,000,000 | October 31, 2023 | Singapore |
Engine Biosciences applies machine learning to genomics for drug discovery.
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| Interius BioTherapeutics | $102,951,331 | October 20, 2023 | Philadelphia, Pennsylvania |
Interius BioTherapeutics is an oncology-focused biopharma.
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| Automata | $99,777,204 | October 03, 2023 | London |
Automata specializes in laboratory automation to streamline and improve the consistency of lab processes.
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| Ascidian Therapeutics | $90,000,000 | November 8, 2023 | Boston |
Ascidian Therapeutics is exploring the treatment of disease by rewriting RNA.
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| Memo Therapeutics | $86,740,483 | November 2, 2023 | Schlieren, Zurich, Switzerland |
Focuses on antibody discovery and development.
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| ENSEM Therapeutics | $77,000,000 | October 23, 2023 | Medford, Massachusetts |
Develops drug candidates using its proprietary platform that integrates genetic, transcriptional, and structural data to design small molecule therapeutics.
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| Arzeda | $66,383,773 | November 27, 2023 | Seattle |
Arzeda’s Intelligent Protein Design Technology combines physics-based protein design and AI.
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| Codagenix | $65,602,000 | October 24, 2023 | Farmingdale, New York |
Codagenix focuses on codon deoptimization with live-attenuated viruses for vaccine and therapeutic development.
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| Therini Bio | $65,350,000 | April 27, 2023 | San Francisco |
Therini Bio is a biotechnology company specializing in fibrin-targeting therapies to treat inflammatory neurological and retinal diseases.
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| Tagworks Pharmaceuticals | $65,000,000 | June 22, 20231 | Nijmegen, Gelderland | Focuses on eliciting selective chemical reactions in the body to release payloads, enabling on-target activation of antibody-drug conjugates, masked immunomodulators, and other prodrugs. |
Filed Under: Biologics, Biotech
