- Samsung Life Science Fund invests in Generate:Biomedicines, a Flagship Pioneering company leading in AI-enabled protein therapeutics discovery and development- Investment highlights Samsung's dedication to advancing innovation and creating a robust ecosystem for AI-enabled therapeutic developmentINCHEON, South Korea, Dec. 18, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Samsung announced today it has invested in Generate: Biomedicines ("Generate") as part of its efforts to drive growth and innovation in the biopharmaceutical sector. The investment was made via the Samsung Life Science Fund, which was created jointly between Samsung Biologics, Samsung C&T, and Samsung Bioepis, and managed by Samsung Venture Investment Corporation. Established in 2021 and worth KRW 240 billion, the fund has invested in biotech companies with promising technologies.Generate, founded by Flagship Pioneering, is a US-based clinical stage company leading in generative biology. The company applies AI-based optimization and de novo generation to discover and design novel protein therapeutics, and has a robust pipeline of approximately 20 programs from preclinical to clinical development across oncology, immunology, and infectious diseases."We see great potential in Generate to develop first- and best-in-class therapeutics," said John Rim, President and CEO of Samsung Biologics. "Leveraging Generate's strengths in AI and machine learning, we look forward to creating an ecosystem for development, manufacturing, and R&D collaboration to advance next-generation medicines in areas with unmet needs.""Funding from leading partners like Samsung enables us to continue advancing our platform, generating high-quality data, and empowering our exceptional team to tackle some of the toughest challenges in human health," said Mike Nally, CEO of Generate:Biomedicines

Have you ever heard of a biotech unicorn? Although a mythological creature might be what first springs to mind, a unicorn in the business world actually refers to a privately owned company valued at more than $1 billion. Some world-renowned former unicorns include Airbnb, Facebook, and Google. The reason they are called “unicorns” is because it is traditionally very rare for a company to achieve this valuation.In the biotech world, there are only a select few companies with unicorn status that are working on therapeutics. In this article, we take a closer look at 12 biotech unicorns rated in order of their valuations according to CB Insights.Table of contentsAbogen BiosciencesAbogen Biosciences is a Chinese biotech company and is valued at $3.7 billion. This comes as no surprise after it raised $700 million in series C funding back in August 2021, marking one of the largest private biotech funding rounds ever and obliterating the fundraising record for a Chinese mRNA vaccine developer. It then followed this round with another impressive series C+ round in November of the same year, in which it raised $300 million.Abogen is part of a rare breed of Chinese biotechs, having actually developed all of its key messenger RNA (mRNA) platform technologies itself, across mRNA synthesis, delivery, and manufacturing

Beyond these high-profile partnerships, Generate also recently completed a $273 million Series C funding round, backed by key investors including Amgen and NVIDIA.