Beam Therapeutics

Beam Therapeutics is a synthetic biology company using CRISPR to develop a portfolio of genetic medicines that is headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts and was founded in 2017 by David R. Liu, Feng Zhang, J. Keith Joung, and John Evans. The company developed a genome editing platform capable of making permanent base pair changes in DNA or RNA without making any cuts into strands of DNA.

Partnerships

The following companies and organizations are involved in partnership agreements with Beam Therapeutics: Harvard University, Editas Medicine, Broad Institute, and Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH).

Funding

Series A

On May 14, 2018 beam therapeutics completed their series A funding round with $87 million in funding lead by F-Prime Capital Partners and ARCH Ventures.

Series B

On March 6, 2019 Beam therapeutics completed their series B funding round with $135 million in funding from F-Prime Capital, ARCH Venture Partners, Eight Roads Ventures, Omega Funds, Redmile Group, LLC, Cormorant Asset Management, GV, Altitude Life Science Ventures, and additional undisclosed investors.

Following Beam Therapeutics series B funding the CEO of the company, John Evans told reporters:

We now have 10 active programs underway and have expanded our team to more than 70 employees. We are thrilled to have the support and partnership from this group of world-class investors to help us achieve our mission. With this funding, we will continue to expand our team and capabilities, extend our leadership position in base editing technology, and move our pipeline towards clinical development where we hope to make an impact for patients with serious genetic diseases.