Virtually $5.1 billion was invested in Washington state biotechnology, medical expertise, and digital well being firms final 12 months throughout all phases of improvement, in keeping with an inaugural investor report launched at the moment by an affiliation representing Washington’s life science trade.
The funding got here from greater than 180 buyers worldwide, together with life science firms by mergers and acquisitions, and thru enterprise capital funds, in keeping with the report revealed by Life Science Washington. The funding report was compiled using information from PitchBook, S&P World Market Intelligence, and different publicly disclosed data, the report stated, including that many investments by Washington’s energetic seed and angel buyers usually are not captured within the report attributable to limitations in publicly obtainable information for early-stage investments.
Final 12 months’s funding complete was the second highest within the final 9 years, second solely to 2018, when Seattle-based Juno Therapeutics was acquired for $8.6 billion, in keeping with the report.
“It is not straightforward to construct a life science firm and this report exhibits buyers worldwide acknowledge the unimaginable innovation being developed by Washington firms — from rising to established gamers and throughout all sectors of life sciences,” Marc Cummings, president and CEO of Life Science Washington, stated in a information launch on the report. “These buyers are inserting bets on firms in a longtime hub with a deep historical past of worldwide well being innovation and a pioneering spirit that continues to create cutting-edge firms. This report additionally exhibits that funding is on a gentle development path, with our biotech firms main the best way.”
The entire 2021 investments included early and later stage VC, angel funding, mergers and acquisitions, preliminary public choices, reverse mergers, and “different,” the report stated. There have been 112 offers final 12 months within the state, with seven M&A offers accounting for nearly $1.8 billion of the entire annual funding.
Essentially the most offers, 49, concerned later stage VC, and totaled $849 million. There have been 98 buyers within the biotech sector, 23 in medical tech, and 57 in digital well being.
The highest 10 offers by funding measurement final 12 months, not together with IPOs, in keeping with the report, had been:
-Rodeo Therapeutics Corp., of Seattle, with complete funding of $720 million, a merger and acquisition take care of Amgen.
-Decision Bioscience Inc., of Kirkland, with complete funding of $695 million, an M&A take care of Agilent Applied sciences.
-Bardy Diagnostics Inc., of Bellevue, with complete funding of $375 million, an M&A take care of Hillrom Holdings.
-Umoja Biopharma Inc., of Seattle, complete funding of $210 million, later stage VC, with lead buyers of Cormorant Asset Administration; SoftBank Funding Advisers (UK) Ltd.; and SoftBank Imaginative and prescient Fund.
-Nautilus Biotechnology, of Seattle, complete funding of $200 million, later stage VC, with lead buyers Perceptive Advisors LLC.
-Absci Corp., of Vancouver, Washington, complete funding of $125 million, debt financing, with lead buyers Casdin Capital LLC and Redmile Group LLC.
-Form Therapeutics Inc., of Seattle, complete funding of $112 million, later stage VC, with lead buyers Breton Capital Ventures; and Decheng Capital LLC.
-Variant Bio, of Seattle, complete funding $105 million, later stage VC, with lead buyers SoftBank Funding Advisers (UK) Ltd.; and SoftBank Imaginative and prescient Fund 2.
-Tasso Inc., of Seattle, complete funding $100 million, later stage VC, with lead investor RA Capital Administration LP.
-Icosavax Inc., of Seattle, $99.73 million, later stage VC, with lead investor RA Capital Administration LP.
Life Science Washington Institute, an affiliate of Life Science Washington, helps to develop the following era of life sciences firms in Washington by mentorship, connections and workshops, the discharge stated. The U.S. Small Enterprise Affiliation awarded $125,000 to the institute to advance its work with Washington researchers and entrepreneurs to assist them improve their proposals and improve the variety of Small Enterprise Innovation Analysis and Small Enterprise Expertise Switch program awards obtained, significantly for candidates from underserved communities, and to assist analysis that may translate into industrial merchandise, the launched added.
