Acelyrin, InnovaFeed and Arsenal Biosciences acquired the largest investments in biotechnology in September 2022, with insect protein and cell therapies attracting significant funding rounds.
Autumn is in full swing in the Northern Hemisphere. After a break in August 2022, September saw the return of big fundraising activities for biotech companies.
We’ve rounded up the largest biotech investments that went to private companies around the world in September, broken down into the healthcare and industrial biotech sectors focused on biotech.
Healthcare Investments
The largest private healthcare investment in biotechnology in the United States went to Acelyrin in Los Angeles. The company has secured $300 million in funding for Phase III development of a small-molecule drug to treat inflammatory diseases, psoriatic arthritis and axial spondyloarthritis. In second place, San Francisco-based Arsenal Biosciences has raised $220 million in Series B cash to advance the development of CAR-T cell therapies for solid tumors.
In Europe, the best healthcare biotech investment round went to Farnext in France. Pharnext has raised an investment round of approximately $200 million to fund clinical development of a drug pipeline that treats neurodegenerative diseases such as Charcot-Marie-Tooth type 1A disease and Alzheimer’s disease. Farnext designs combinations of drugs approved to fight disease on multiple fronts.
India’s Molbio Diagnostics leads the list of healthcare biotech investment in the Asia Pacific region, raising $85 million. The company manufactures a portable PCR system that can be used in remote and inaccessible areas for rapid diagnosis of a range of infectious diseases, such as tuberculosis, COVID-19, hepatitis, HIV, HPV and malaria. China’s Worg Pharmaceuticals came in second, raising $58 million in a second round of funding to develop allergy immunotherapies.
Other investments in biotechnology and life sciences
Outside of the healthcare sector, biotech companies have raised significant investments to develop technology that supports food security and the circular economy.
In this field, the largest investment round in the United States went to Prolific Machines. The San Francisco company has secured $42 million in seed and seed co-funding to fund its effort to develop inexpensive protein reagents necessary to manufacture cultured meat. In this way, the company aims to make farmed meat economically viable.
In Europe, French insect protein company InnovaFeed has raised a massive $250 million Series D investment. The company plans to use the cash to develop vertical insect farms to produce food products for animal consumption, particularly in the aquaculture, poultry, pig and pet food markets.
The Asia Pacific region saw fewer industrial biotechnology funding rounds than Europe and the United States. The district’s headline was Nutrition Technologies, a Singaporean company that develops animal feed and fertilizer from black soldier fly larvae. Indonesia’s Mycotech has been ranked second with an initial round of funding for its quest to produce leather from a mass of fungal fragments called mycelium.
Aside from the private funding rounds, there were big moments in the biotech industry in September. One of the most notable US biotech investments was a $1 billion round that went to public company Verily Life Sciences to fund its micro-health-focused business using big data. The most recent announcement by the White House was the allocation of more than two billion dollars to sponsor the biotechnology and biomanufacturing sectors in the United States.
Originally published at San Jose News Bulletin
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