On June 6, 2022 National Resilience, Inc. (Resilience), a technology-focused biomanufacturing company dedicated to broadening access to complex medicines, reported it has raised $625 million in a Series D financing, in addition to a previously unannounced $600 million Series C financing completed in August 2021 (Press release, National Resilience, JUN 6, 2022, View Source [SID1234615653]).
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The company will use the funding to continue to invest in building its infrastructure network through strategic collaborations, acquisitions, organic growth and international expansion, and by developing innovative biomanufacturing technologies to ensure the medicines of today and tomorrow can be made quickly, safely and at scale. Resilience is also investing in advanced R&D, including stable cell lines for viral vector production, distributed manufacturing for autologous cell therapy and cell-free and continuous manufacturing for biologics.
"We have an ambitious goal to reinvent biomanufacturing by bringing new processes and technologies to an industry that hasn’t kept pace with the explosive innovation in drug discovery," said Rahul Singhvi, Sc.D., Chief Executive Officer of Resilience. "While we recognize that our goal is neither quick nor easy, we are driven by our mission to democratize access to medicines. These new funds will help support our next phase of growth, as we continue to innovate biomanufacturing across all our modalities, expand our footprint to serve customers, sign strategic collaborations and support the developers of a new generation of complex medicines."
Resilience, which focuses on five therapeutic modalities – biologics, vaccines, nucleic acids and cell and gene therapies – currently has 10 facilities across North America, with more than 1 million square feet of manufacturing space and more than 1,600 employees. The company’s network, which is expected to add capacity and capabilities this year with projects underway at several existing sites, is agile enough to scale customer projects from process and analytical development through preclinical to large scale commercial drug substance and drug product manufacturing.
Resilience‘s flexible business model enables it to partner with customers of any size and across therapeutic modalities, through fee-for-service arrangements, value-share agreements and new company creation/incubation projects. The company also provides opportunities for early access and out licensing of next-generation technologies. Beyond industry customers and partners, Resilience works with government agencies, academic institutions and non-profit organizations.
The latest up-round financing was led by new and existing investors, including venture capital funds, public mutual funds, pension funds, biopharma companies, sovereign wealth funds and private family offices, among others. In total, Resilience has secured more than $2 billion in equity financing since its founding in 2020.
Recent Notable Milestones and Developments
Technology:
Acquired SwiftScale Biologics, a company developing cell-free protein synthesis, a technology that aims to eliminate the constraints of using living cells in the drug manufacturing process, resulting in faster production times, less variability across batches and greater scalability with hard-to-produce proteins.
Customers:
Established a multi-product development and manufacturing collaboration with Takeda’s Plasma-Derived Therapies Business Unit.
Secured a contract with the U.S. Department of Defense for manufacturing a monoclonal antibody as a medical countermeasure to botulinum neurotoxins.
Signed a strategic manufacturing services agreement with Opus Genetics, a gene therapy company developing treatments for inherited retinal diseases.
Manufacturing Infrastructure:
Acquired bluebird bio’s Research Triangle manufacturing facility in North Carolina.
Added capacity and capabilities including drug substance and drug product manufacturing expansions coming online in 2022 across sites in Alachua, FL, Boston and Toronto, to support biologics and vaccines.
Constructing a new, state-of-the-art facility in Marlborough, MA to support vaccines and gene therapy, coming online in 2023.
Adding a new cell and gene therapy process and analytical development as well as drug substance manufacturing site in the Philadelphia region.
Academic Collaborations & Incubations:
Launched a joint venture with The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center to accelerate the development and manufacturing of innovative cell therapies for patients with cancer.
Entered into a five-year R&D alliance with Harvard University to incubate new technologies and launch companies to advance the manufacture of complex medicines.
Formed a strategic collaboration with Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) to implement next-generation biomanufacturing technologies and capabilities aimed at accelerating the creation of impactful therapies and technologies for the benefit of patients.
Value-Share Agreements:
Formed a strategic collaboration with Be Biopharma to manufacture engineered B Cells to create a new class of autologous and allogeneic cellular medicines.