Tessera Therapeutics receives investment to develop curative in vivo genetic treatment for sickle cell disease.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is investing up to $50 million in Tessera Therapeutics to support its development of in-vivo genetic medicines for sickle cell disease. Tessera aims to offer a one-time intravenous treatment that avoids the need for high-dose chemotherapy and complex stem cell mobilization, unlike existing ex-vivo therapies. Tessera, founded by Flagship Pioneering, previously raised $230 million in Series B financing in 2021 and $300 million in 2022.

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