BridgeBio Pharma gets $135M for genetic disease work

US based Biotech Company; BridgeBio Pharma has gained $135 million for its genetic disease R&D

The funding has been funded by a broad spectrum of funders including Viking Global Investors, as well as existing investor KKR, who co-led the round. They were joined by Perceptive Advisors alongside AIG, Aisling Capital, Cormorant Capital and Janus Funds.

The company said, "These funds are not the end, as this deal also comes "with potential to access significant additional capital via insiders."

The company will use the cash to boost the work on its early-stage discovery and development programs, with the goal of creating genetically targeted therapeutics that "address the fundamental causes of disease."

It’s a bit different to your average startup, and works within a "hub and spoke" corporate structure that has seen it launch 10 drug programs under its dermatology, oncology, cardiology, neurology and endocrine business units.

Targets for these include: transthyretin amyloidosis, pantothenate kinase-associated neurodegeneration, Gorlin syndrome and frequent basal cell carcinomas, dystrophic epidermolysis bullosa, Darier and Hailey-Hailey diseases, Netherton syndrome and SHP-2, K-RAS and C-RAF driven cancers.

Neil Kumar, co-founder and CEO of BridgeBio Pharma said, "BridgeBio Pharma continues to focus on our mission to create medicines for patients with genetic diseases."

"In particular, we work to identify promising, but often overlooked, early-stage innovation that can translate into drugs that matter for patients. We are fortunate to be supported by investors who believe in our mission," he added.

"Modern drug discovery requires modern business infrastructure," added company co-founder and investor Andrew W. Lo, Ph.D., the Charles E. and Susan T. Harris professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management. Lo also serves as director of the Laboratory for Financial Engineering.

"Despite the terrific scientific innovations we've seen in biomedicine, there's been much less innovation on the corporate side. BridgeBio employs a novel structure that combines portfolio diversification with asset-level focus to sustainably develop drugs for genetic disease."