Beeline Medicines has attracted another $126.3 million in funding, the company said Tuesday, adding to an enormous Series A round originally announced in the spring to fund its work on drugs for immune conditions.
That brings the total raised by Beeline to $426.3 million, adding to one of the largest fundraises this year for a privately held biotechnology company. When Beeline debuted earlier this year, it said the cash would carry it into late-stage clinical development.
Beeline was built around drugs it licensed from Bristol Myers Squibb, led by a prospect in mid-stage testing called afimetoran. A once-daily oral drug, it's being studied as a treatment for systemic lupus erythematosus.
The Series A extension comes ahead of a data readout for afimetoran. Beeline CEO Saqib Islam said in a statement that the funding “reflects deep conviction in the opportunity ahead of us to deliver life-changing treatment options for people with immune-mediated diseases, starting with lupus patients.”
The other Beeline drug in human testing is a biologic — codenamed BLN-326 — for diseases such as atopic dermatitis and lupus. In the coming year, it expects to start clinical trials for the TYK2 inhibitor lomedeucitinib and a fourth prospect dubbed BLN-481 that targets IL-18 receptors. A fifth program is in preclinical study.
Investors in the latest financing include Bain Capital, which helped launch the biotech in 2024, Canada Pension Plan Investment Board and Bristol Myers, alongside “certain members of the company’s management team,” according to the announcement.
Bain has backed a handful of biotechs formed around experimental drugs from pharmaceutical firms, an investment strategy that gives venture investors a shot at more advanced medicines and possibly quicker returns, while giving pharma a way to make cash off programs they are not prioritizing.
Previously, Bain partnered with Pfizer to build both SpringWorks Therapeutics and Cerevel Therapeutics, both of which were later sold in multibillion-dollar deals.
