Xaira Therapeutics, Inc.

BigHat Biosciences has added another pharma partner and more cash to its balance sheet as the antibody specialist prepares to enter the clinic next year. The Bay Area startup will announce a research deal with Eli Lilly later on Thursday, CEO Peyton Greenside exclusively told Endpoints News . The partnership focuses on one antibody target to start, with an option to expand to a second program. The two companies aren’t disclosing specifics or financials of the deal, but Lilly is part of a new investor group extending BigHat’s Series B round from $75 million to over $120 million. That raise was first announced in 2022. Lilly’s equity investment is through its Catalyze360 program . Other new investors include Merck (via its Global Health Innovation Fund), Samsung Ventures, BOLD Longevity Growth Fund and Intermountain Ventures. Founded in 2019, BigHat started out by combining advances in machine learning and synthetic biology. The company now has about 100 employees out of its San Mateo, CA headquarters, and is expecting its first drug, an antibody-drug conjugate for gastrointestinal cancers, to start human testing in 2026. Lilly is the latest large drugmaker to partner with BigHat, joining the ranks of AbbVie, Amgen, Merck and Johnson & Johnson. The company swapped CEOs in January, with Greenside stepping into the top role after previously serving as chief scientific officer. She replaced Mark DePristo, her fellow co-founder, describing the time as a “natural transition” point as the company approached the clinic. “Mark wants to go back to the roots of early stage, disruptive technology, and I’m really excited to take us forward,” Greenside said. The AI-for-antibody-design space has gotten crowded over the past few years. Nobel Prize-winning breakthroughs like Google DeepMind’s AlphaFold model to predict protein structures and David Baker’s protein design feats have fueled investor interest . Startups like Xaira Therapeutics and Generate:Biomedicines raised hundreds of millions of dollars. Alphabet’s Isomorphic Labs is also expanding into biologics after raising a $600 million round, CEO Demis Hassabis told Endpoints earlier this month. Given the competition, Greenside said BigHat has focused on doing more than just optimizing binding affinity and stability of antibodies. The pipeline reflects that by focusing on ADCs and T cell engagers rather than typical monoclonal antibodies. Its research also allows more functions for these drugs, like so-called logic gates for molecules. This includes requiring an antibody to find two targets on a cell to be activated. The hope is this feature, called a NOT logic gate, can lower toxicity of cancer drugs by making them more selective in targeting cancerous cells over healthy cells. This research has yet to be published or preprinted, although a BigHat scientist provided a summary of these results at a scientific conference in December. “It’s not just doing things faster or better, all of which we can do,” Greenside said. “It’s, ‘Let’s do something novel that will have a lasting advantage when we actually go to treat these patients in these indications.’”

Insilico Medicine, part of the first wave of AI-driven drug discovery and development shops, secured a $110 million megaround at a unicorn valuation for its pipeline of 30 treatment candidates. The clinical-stage startup raised more than $400 million in its first decade and tried twice to go public via the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. It let its most recent plans lapse in September. Value Partners Group led the Series E, which was disclosed Wednesday and comes three years after a $60 million Series D . At the time of its HKEX filing last year, CEO Alex Zhavoronkov was the largest shareholder in Insilico, owning 10.32% of shares. Other large owners include Palace Investments, Qiming Venture Partners, Warburg Pincus and Aramco Ventures. The Cambridge, MA-based startup has locations across the globe, including in New York, Abu Dhabi, Hong Kong, and Shanghai. Since Insilico’s launch a decade ago, a flurry of other AI-driven biotechs have sprouted up. Some companies have merged, like Recursion and Exscientia. Meanwhile, others are bringing in hefty funding rounds, like Xaira’s $1 billion launch last spring. The biotech said 10 of its 30 assets have gotten clearance for clinical trials. It’s also forged licensing deals with Fosun Pharma, Exelixis and the Menarini Group over the years and inked collaborations with Sanofi, Saudi Aramco and others. Insilico last year presented early Phase 2a data for rentosertib, or ISM001-055, its experimental treatment for idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis. Its pipeline includes programs in pain, obesity, inflammatory diseases, Covid-19, solid tumors and other cancers. The company said it can nominate preclinical candidates in 12 to 18 months, compared to 2.5 years to 4 years for traditional drug discovery. Beyond its pipeline, the company has a proprietary platform called Pharma.AI that uses generative AI, and it’s working on a bipedal humanoid AI scientist in a fully robotic lab.

None For the biotech industry, 2024 meant the return of the venture capital megaround. And one startup, Xaira Therapeutics, took it a step further, expanding the industry’s definition of a megaround by reeling in a rarely seen $1 billion financing early in the year.  In this week’s episode of The Top Line, we dive into a recently published report from Fierce Biotech highlighting the industry’s top 10 money raisers in 2024, led by none other than Xaira. Fierce’s Gabrielle Masson and Andrea Park talk about some of the year’s biggest financing rounds, how 2024’s list compares to 2023 and what indications are changing the fundraising scene.To learn more about the topics in this episode:    Biotech's top money raisers of 2024Fierce Biotech Fundraising Tracker '24 Biotech's top money raisers of 2023