Syncona
Limited
Syncona portfolio company
Beacon Therapeutics raises $170 million in a Series B
financing
03 July 2024
· Syncona invests in Beacon's $170 million (£134
million[1]) Series B financing, committing
$42.5 million (£33.5 million), alongside a leading global syndicate
of new and existing investors
· Syncona's holding in Beacon written up by £14.1 million (2.2p
per share); a 17.6 per cent uplift to the 31 March 2024 valuation
of the company
· Including new capital invested, Syncona's holding value of
Beacon will be $131.9 million (£104.0 million), and on drawdown of
the full Series B financing, Syncona's ownership stake in the
business will be 41.4 per cent[2]
Syncona Ltd, ("Syncona" or the
"Company") a leading life science investor focused on creating, building and scaling global leaders in life
science, today announces that it has
committed $42.5 million (£33.5
million) to a $170 million
(£134 million) Series B
financing of its portfolio company Beacon Therapeutics ("Beacon"),
a leading ophthalmic gene therapy company with a purpose to save
and restore the vision of patients with blinding retinal diseases.
Forbion led the round and, alongside Syncona, the financing was
supported by existing investors Oxford Science Enterprises and the
University of Oxford, and new investors TCGX and Advent Life
Sciences.
Syncona launched Beacon in 2023,
cornerstoning a Series A financing. Beacon was created to pursue an
opportunity Syncona identified to apply its domain knowledge in
retinal disease to a late-stage clinical asset through the
acquisition of AGTC[3] in 2022, which it
complemented with a pipeline of pre-clinical programmes to build a
leading retinal gene therapy company. Beacon is focused on both
rare and prevalent diseases, including X-linked retinitis
pigmentosa (XLRP), a blinding orphan disease for which there is no
available treatment and dry age-related macular degeneration
(dAMD), a leading cause of irreversible
vision loss in people over 60. Beacon's lead asset, AGTC-501, is
currently in a Phase II/III registrational trial[4] for the treatment of XLRP, which is expected to
read out in CY2026. Beacon presented encouraging 12-month efficacy
data from the Phase II SKYLINE trial of AGTC-501 during the year,
and 24-month data is expected in H2 CY2024.
This latest financing brings the
total amount that Beacon has raised in funding to date to
approximately $290 million. The funds will be used to support the continued clinical
development of AGTC-501 for XLRP and to generate Phase I/II
clinical trial data for Beacon's dAMD programme.
Following the Series B financing,
Syncona's holding in Beacon has been written up by £14.1 million, a
17.6 per cent uplift to the 31 March 2024 valuation of the company.
Including £9.6 million of new capital invested since 31 March
2024, Syncona's holding value of Beacon
will be $131.9 million (£104.0 million). In
addition, Syncona has an existing £14.4 million of value attributed
to a deferred consideration from the prior acquisition of
AGTC[5]. On
drawdown of the full Series B financing, Syncona's
ownership stake in the business will be 41.4 per cent.
Elisa Petris, Lead Partner at Syncona Investment Management
Limited and Board Director of Beacon Therapeutics,
said: "Beacon has secured a
high-quality syndicate of investors to support the ongoing
development of its lead clinical candidate AGTC-501 and broader
pipeline. The strength and calibre of this global group of life
science investors provides important external validation of
Beacon's technology and progress to date. We have leveraged our
expertise and network to support Beacon thus far, from identifying
the opportunity to acquire a late-stage asset in AGTC, to
supporting this financing today. We look forward to continuing to
work closely with the company and our syndicate partners to advance
its solutions for debilitating blinding retinal diseases through
the clinic and towards patients."
David Fellows, Chief Executive Officer of Beacon Therapeutics,
said: "We are focused on progressing
our promising pipeline of ocular gene therapies to save and restore
the vision of patients with a range of prevalent and rare retinal
diseases that result in blindness. These funds will support the
ongoing development of our late-stage and preclinical pipeline and
enable acceleration of the development of AGTC-501, as we progress
through the clinic and toward commercialisation. We are delighted
to extend our strong group of investors and look forward to working
with them to ambitiously pursue our strategy."
[ENDS]
Enquiries
Syncona Ltd
Natalie Garland-Collins / Fergus
Witt
Tel: +44 (0) 20 3981 7940
FTI Consulting
Ben Atwell / Tim Stamper
Tel: +44 (0) 20 3727 1000
About Syncona
Syncona's purpose is to invest to
extend and enhance human life. We do this by creating, building and
scaling companies to deliver transformational treatments to
patients in areas of high unmet need.
We aim to build and maintain a
diversified portfolio of 20-25 globally leading life science
businesses, across development stage, modality and therapeutic
area, for the benefit of all our stakeholders. We focus on
developing treatments that deliver patient impact by working in
close partnership with world-class academic founders and
experienced management teams. Our balance sheet underpins our
strategy, enabling us to take a long-term view as we look to
improve the lives of patients with no or poor treatment options,
build sustainable life science companies and deliver strong
risk-adjusted returns to shareholders.
Syncona Limited seeks to achieve returns over the long term.
Investors should seek to ensure they understand the risks and
opportunities of an investment in Syncona Limited, including the
information in our published documentation, before
investing.
About Beacon Therapeutics
Beacon Therapeutics is an ophthalmic
gene therapy company founded in 2023 to save and restore the vision
of patients with a range of prevalent and rare retinal diseases
that result in blindness.
The Company has an established
scientific foundation that combines a late-stage development
candidate to treat X-linked retinitis pigmentosa (XLRP), as well as
two preclinical programs, one targeting dry age-related macular
degeneration (AMD) and another targeting cone-rod dystrophy (CRD),
an inherited retinal disease.
Lead development candidate AGTC-501,
is a gene therapy program currently being investigated for the
treatment of XLRP, an inherited monogenic recessive disorder that
causes progressive vision loss in boys and young men. XLRP is
predominantly caused by mutations in the retinitis pigmentosa
GTPase regulator (RPGR) gene. AGTC-501 expresses the full length
RPGR protein, thereby addressing the full complement of
photoreceptor damage caused by XLRP, including both rod and cone
loss.
Beacon Therapeutics also has access
to a target generation technology platform that will identify,
screen, and search secreted proteins in the ophthalmology
space.
Find out more about Beacon
Therapeutics at beacontx.com.