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

The Nobel Prize is the most prestigious award in the scientific world. It was created according to Mr. Alfred Nobel's will to give a prize “to those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind” in physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, literature, and peace. A sixth prize would be later on created for economic sciences by the Swedish central bank.Who to attribute the prize to belongs to multiple Swedish academic institutions.Legacy ConcernsThe decision to create the Nobel Prize came to Alfred Nobel after he read his own obituary, following a mistake by a French newspaper that misunderstood the news of his brother's death. Titled “The Merchant of Death Is Dead”, the French article hammered Nobel for his invention of smokeless explosives, of which dynamite was the most famous one.His inventions were very influential in shaping modern warfare, and Nobel purchased a massive iron and steel mill to turn it into a major armaments manufacturer. As he was first a chemist, engineer, and inventor, Nobel realized that he did not want his legacy to be one of a man remembered to have made a fortune over war and the death of others.Nobel PrizeThese days, Nobel's Fortune is stored in a fund invested to generate income to finance the Nobel Foundation and the gold-plated green gold medal, diploma, and monetary award of 11 million SEK (around $1M) attributed to the winners.Often, the Nobel Prize money is divided between several winners, especially in scientific fields where it is common for 2 or 3 leading figures to contribute together or in parallel to a groundbreaking discovery.Over the years, the Nobel Prize became THE scientific prize, trying to strike a balance between theoretical and very practical discoveries