David Halbert, Caris Life Sciences CEO (Caris via Twitter)

The grow­ing liq­uid biop­sy field sees a uni­corn en­trant as Caris pulls in $830M megaround

Caris Life Sci­ences has pulled in an­oth­er mas­sive raise, and this time they’re re­port­ed­ly one step clos­er to launch­ing their IPO.

The AI-fo­cused Caris pulled in an $830 mil­lion growth eq­ui­ty round, the com­pa­ny an­nounced Tues­day af­ter­noon, earn­ing a val­u­a­tion of about $7.83 bil­lion. Tues­day’s raise al­so brings their to­tal fi­nanc­ing amount to $1.3 bil­lion since 2018 and $1.14 bil­lion since last Oc­to­ber. Ac­cord­ing to the Wall Street Jour­nal, which first re­port­ed on the raise, Caris ex­pects to com­plete their IPO some­time with­in the next 12 months.

Caris’ strat­e­gy uti­lizes ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence to map a can­cer pa­tient’s ge­net­ic make­up and de­ter­mine which kinds of treat­ments would be best suit­ed for an op­ti­mal out­come. The com­pa­ny says their plat­form al­lows doc­tors to as­sess all 22,000 genes in both DNA and RNA to do so, uti­liz­ing whole ex­ome se­quenc­ing, whole tran­scrip­tome se­quenc­ing and pro­tein analy­sis in ad­di­tion to its AI mod­els.

Funds from Tues­day’s raise will al­low Caris to push their ef­forts in­to liq­uid biop­sies, in ad­di­tion to the sol­id tu­mor biop­sy ser­vices they cur­rent­ly pro­vide. One of these new pro­grams comes in the form of a blood-based pan-can­cer test, which Caris hopes can be used to de­tect can­cers in their ear­li­er stages.

“This re­cent raise will help us bring our mar­ket-lead­ing sci­ence and tech­nolo­gies to as many pa­tients as pos­si­ble, ul­ti­mate­ly rein­vent­ing can­cer care,” CEO David Hal­bert said in a state­ment. “We plan to un­lock the full po­ten­tial of pre­ci­sion med­i­cine through com­pre­hen­sive in­ter­ro­ga­tion of can­cer at the mol­e­c­u­lar lev­el.”

Pre­ci­sion med­i­cine — and all the tools that make it pos­si­ble — is a high-fly­ing area of the bio­phar­ma in­dus­try, ev­i­denced by Caris’ own fi­nanc­ing and uni­corn val­u­a­tion. One of its main com­peti­tors in ge­nom­ic pro­fil­ing is Foun­da­tion Med­i­cine, which was ac­quired by Roche for $2.4 bil­lion back in 2018. The buy­out had fol­lowed a sim­i­lar $1.9 bil­lion deal where Roche pur­chased Flat­iron Health and their health records sys­tem.

Mean­while, Caris’ move in­to the liq­uid biop­sy are­na will see it join a rel­a­tive­ly new but crowd­ed field, pit­ting it against well-known play­ers like Guardant Health and Third Rock-backed Thrive Ear­li­er De­tec­tion. There’s al­so the Il­lu­mi­na spin-out Grail, which notched its own hefty raise in May 2020 with $390 mil­lion in new fi­nanc­ing and sub­se­quent­ly planned an IPO.

Be­fore it could go pub­lic, how­ev­er, Il­lu­mi­na an­nounced it would be re-ac­quir­ing Grail last Sep­tem­ber for $8 bil­lion. That merg­er was put on hold ear­li­er this year af­ter the FTC moved to block the deal from go­ing through.

Forge Bi­o­log­ics’ cGMP Com­pli­ant and Com­mer­cial­ly Vi­able Be­spoke Affin­i­ty Chro­matog­ra­phy Plat­form

Forge Biologics has developed a bespoke affinity chromatography platform approach that factors in unique vector combinations to streamline development timelines and assist our clients in efficiently entering the clinic. By leveraging our experience with natural and novel serotypes and transgene conformations, we are able to accelerate affinity chromatography development by nearly 3-fold. Many downstream purification models are serotype-dependent, demanding unique and time-consuming development strategies for each AAV gene therapy product1. With the increasing demand to propel AAV gene therapies to market, platform purification methods that support commercial-scale manufacturing of high-quality vectors with excellent safety and efficacy profiles are essential.

Mathai Mammen, FogPharma's next CEO

Math­ai Mam­men hands in J&J's R&D keys to lead Greg Ver­dine’s Fog­Phar­ma 

In the early 1990s, Mathai Mammen was a teaching assistant in Greg Verdine’s Science B46 course at Harvard. In June, the former R&D head at Johnson & Johnson will succeed Verdine as CEO, president and chair of FogPharma, the same month the seven-year-old biotech kickstarts its first clinical trial.

After leading R&D at one of the largest drugmakers in the world, taking the company through more than half a dozen drug approvals in the past few years, not to mention a Covid-19 vaccine race, Mammen departed J&J last month and will take the helm of a Cambridge, MA biotech attempting to go after what Verdine calls the “true emperor of all oncogenes” — beta-catenin.

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Sen­ate Fi­nance Com­mit­tee lobs more bi­par­ti­san pres­sure on­to PBMs

Congress is honing in on how it wants to overhaul the rules of the road for pharmacy benefit managers, with a Senate Finance Committee hearing Thursday serving as the latest example of the Hill’s readiness to make changes to how pharma middlemen operate.

While pledging to ensure patients and pharmacies “don’t get a raw deal,” Finance Committee Chair Ron Wyden (D-OR) laid out the beginning of what looks like a major bipartisan effort — moves the PBM industry is likely to challenge vigorously.

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Nicklas Westerholm, Egetis Therapeutics CEO

Ac­qui­si­tion talks on­go­ing for Swedish rare dis­ease biotech Egetis, shares up al­most 40%

Shares of the Sweden-based rare disease biotech Egetis Therapeutics skyrocketed on Thursday afternoon as the company said it’s engaged in “ongoing discussion” with external parties regarding a “potential acquisition.”

Egetis confirmed rumors with a statement on Thursday while noting that there is no certainty that a takeover offer will be made.

Nonetheless, the possibility of an acquisition has shot up Egetis’ share price. By the afternoon on Thursday, its stock price was {$EGTX.ST} up over 38%. An Egetis spokesperson told Endpoints News in an email that it has no further comments.

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Lu­pus drug de­vel­op­ment mar­ket heat­ing up, while FDA links with ad­vo­ca­cy group to fur­ther ac­cel­er­ate re­search

The long-underserved systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) market is suddenly buzzing with treatment possibilities. Less than two years after AstraZeneca’s approval for Saphnelo — the first new SLE drug in a decade and joining just one other approved in GSK’s Benlysta – the pipeline of potential drugs numbers in the dozens.

Although most are very early stage — Spherix Global Insights estimates five in Phase II/III — the pharma R&D enthusiasm is catching on among doctors, patients and advocacy groups. On Wednesday, the Lupus Research Alliance and the FDA formed a novel private-public partnership called Lupus Accelerating Breakthroughs Consortium (Lupus ABC) to help advance lupus clinical trial success.

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Stéphane Bancel, Moderna CEO (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)

Mod­er­na so­lid­i­fies deal with Kenya to build mR­NA man­u­fac­tur­ing fa­cil­i­ty

The mRNA player Moderna is further cementing its presence on the African continent.

Moderna announced on Thursday that it has finalized an agreement with Kenya’s government to partner up and bring an mRNA manufacturing facility to the east African nation. The new facility aims to manufacture up to 500 million doses of vaccines annually. Moderna also said the new facility will have the ability to spike its production capabilities to respond to public health emergencies on the continent or globally.

Luke Miels, GSK chief commercial officer

GSK picks up Scynex­is' FDA-ap­proved an­ti­fun­gal drug for $90M up­front

GSK is dishing out $90 million cash to add an antifungal drug to its commercial portfolio, in a deal spotlighting the pharma giant’s growing focus on infectious diseases.

The upfront will lock in an exclusive license to Scynexis’ Brexafemme, which was approved in 2021 to treat a yeast infection known as vulvovaginal candidiasis, except in China and certain other countries where Scynexis already out-licensed the drug.

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CSL CEO Paul McKenzie (L) and CMO Bill Mezzanotte

Q&A: New­ly-mint­ed CSL chief ex­ec­u­tive Paul McKen­zie and chief med­ical of­fi­cer Bill Mez­zan­otte

Paul McKenzie took over as CEO of Australian pharma giant CSL this month, following in the footsteps of long-time CSL vet Paul Perreault.

With an eye on mRNA, and quickly commercializing its new, $3.5 million-per-shot gene therapy for hemophilia B, McKenzie and chief medical officer Bill Mezzanotte answered some questions from Endpoints News this afternoon about where McKenzie is going to take the company and what advances may be coming to market from CSL’s pipeline. Below is a lightly edited transcript.

UK gov­ern­ment, pri­vate in­vestors dole out $340M+ to drug, di­ag­nos­tic man­u­fac­tur­ers

The government of the United Kingdom is giving out grants to several manufacturers that have a presence in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

The government announced that four companies, including Ipsen, contract manufacturer Pharmaron, DNA manufacturer Touchlight and diagnostic test producer Randox, will receive a total of £277 million ($341.1 million). According to a release from the UK government, this represents the first portion of grants from the Life Sciences Innovative Manufacturing Fund.