AbCellera has raised another round of financing, this time a US $105 million Series B round.
The financing was led by OrbiMed and current investor DCVC Bio, with an investor syndicate that includes Viking Global Investors, Peter Thiel, Founders Fund, Eli Lilly and Company, University of Minnesota, and Presight Capital.
Earlier this month the Government of Canada injected $175 million into the Vancouver pharmaceutical company to discover solutions for COVID-19 and build a manufacturing facility for antibody drugs.
AbCellera has also entered into a multi-year agreement with Eli Lilly on the discovery of antibodies for up to nine Lilly-selected therapeutic targets.
AbCellera will use the two round of funds to deepen its technology stack, creating and aggregating novel tools to propel the development of new biological modalities, from monoclonal, multi-specific, and single-domain antibodies, to bioconjugates, gene-encoded biologics, and cell therapies.
“AbCellera has embarked on a long-term project to make it possible to solve biological challenges with the speed and urgency that they all too obviously require,” said Peter Thiel, entrepreneur and investor.
“Drug development takes too long, fails too often, and costs too much. With the backing of visionary investors, we will double-down on our strategy of making long-term investments in technology and teams that are needed to put drug development on the fast track,” said Carl Hansen, Ph.D., CEO of AbCellera.
“We’re building a modern operating system for drug developers to ensure the best science is translated quickly into new therapies for patients.”