Forge Biologics announced on Monday a $90 million Series C financing to increase access to life-changing gene therapies and accelerate programs from the preclinical stage through clinical and commercial manufacturing. The Columbus-based company has now raised a total of $330 million since launching in 2020.
Forge will use the $90 million to expand client offerings and services including proprietary technologies, manufacturing systems, cell lines, and additional services to strengthen its end-to-end manufacturing platform.
The Series C was co-led by Columbus-based Drive Capital and New York-based Aisling Capital with support from an undisclosed strategic investor.
“Forge has grown tremendously over the last two years, hiring experienced talent and scaling the facility, technology, and client offerings according to their unique hybrid business model,” said Molly Bonakdarpour, General Partner at Drive Capital. “We believe that Forge is becoming an established leader in gene therapy manufacturing, consistent with Drive Capital’s focus to build and support market-defining companies.”
Forge Biologics is a hybrid gene therapy contract manufacturing and clinical-stage therapeutics development company. Its mission is to enable access to life-changing gene therapies and help bring them from idea to reality. With a patient-first approach, Forge strives to accelerate transformative medicines to reach those who need them most.
“The gene therapy industry has been constrained by technical, operational, and capacity constraints, and Forge is poised to tackle each of those areas to alleviate the manufacturing bottleneck as they set out to do,” said Andrew Schiff, M.D., Managing Partner at Aisling Capital.
Recent milestones for the company include:
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Hiring notable talent for key technical roles with gene therapy-specific expertise
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Integrating new systems into its platform process including single-use chromatography and automated fill-finish
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Increasing manufacturing space to over 200,000 square feet
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Building out 20 cGMP suites with 50L, 500L, 1,000L, and 5,000L bioreactors
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Forming the Scientific and Manufacturing Advisory Board composed of industry experts to aid the company in manufacturing advancements
“We continue our ambitious mission to enable access to life-changing gene therapies by fulfilling a key goal of bringing them from concept to reality,” said Timothy J. Miller, Ph.D., CEO, President, and Co-Founder of Forge Biologics. “To deliver on that mission, we’ve made great strides in our facility development, technology advancement, and hiring expansion. These new funds will help support this next measured phase of our growth focused on delivering new services to our clients so that we can support them from idea to impact. Each advancement we make goes towards serving our clients and their patient communities, and we are grateful to our investors for their confidence in our mission.”
