這家初創(chuàng)公司為什么值30億美元？它要讓你的細(xì)胞可以制藥
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????Moderna Therapeutics上周宣布，該公司已經(jīng)募集了4.5億美元的投資，如此巨大的單輪籌資額堪稱生物技術(shù)類初創(chuàng)公司之最?！敦?cái)富》獲悉，這筆交易將Moderna的估值確定為30億美元左右，它也意味著，這家位于馬薩諸塞州坎布里奇的公司目前擁有8億美元的現(xiàn)金儲(chǔ)備（包括過(guò)去投資中沒(méi)有用完的部分）。 ????從本質(zhì)上說(shuō)，所有在生物技術(shù)領(lǐng)域的風(fēng)險(xiǎn)投資都頗具投機(jī)色彩。其中有一半是科學(xué)上的風(fēng)險(xiǎn)，另一半則是法規(guī)上的不確定性。因此，你也許會(huì)認(rèn)為Moderna設(shè)法降低了這些風(fēng)險(xiǎn)，從而得到了如此高的估值，募得了如此多的資金。但你錯(cuò)了。實(shí)際上，Moderna的商業(yè)化程度還不如大部分估值遠(yuǎn)低于它的公司，而且在人類臨床試驗(yàn)方面連一項(xiàng)候選藥物都拿不出手。 ????那么要如何解釋該公司在募集資金上取得的巨大成功，尤其是還得到了通常并不支持這種初期公司的避險(xiǎn)基金和互惠基金的注資（特別是其首席執(zhí)行官甚至還明確表示，該公司不會(huì)很快進(jìn)行首次公開(kāi)募股）？ ????我能做出的最好解釋是，Moderna可能是過(guò)去至少十年中誕生的唯一一家最具革命性的制藥公司，或至少是與谷歌支持的Calico平分秋色，后者旨在延緩細(xì)胞老化。我之所以做出這樣的論斷，是因?yàn)楸M管考慮到了所有上述風(fēng)險(xiǎn)，但Moderna的野心讓其他任何想要治療某種疾病的公司都相形見(jiàn)絀。換句話說(shuō)，這一前景過(guò)于誘人，讓許多人難以拒絕。 ????Moderna的核心技術(shù)是幫助人們?cè)谒麄冏约旱募?xì)胞內(nèi)制造藥物，而不是在實(shí)驗(yàn)室配置用于服用或注射的藥物（這是所有其他生物技術(shù)公司的做法）。具體方法是，在病人體內(nèi)植入信使RNA，這種信使RNA隨后就會(huì)刺激人體細(xì)胞制造治療所需的蛋白質(zhì)。如此一來(lái)，病人就能自己痊愈了。同樣重要的是，Moderna還宣稱他們?cè)O(shè)計(jì)的信使RNA不會(huì)觸發(fā)常見(jiàn)的人體免疫反應(yīng)，后者曾導(dǎo)致過(guò)去在信使RNA上的努力都付之東流。 ????這一點(diǎn)不僅使得許多療法成為可能，還讓Moderna的產(chǎn)品比傳統(tǒng)藥物的檢驗(yàn)時(shí)間短得多，價(jià)格低得多。因?yàn)樗梢岳闷胀ǖ男攀筊NA制造設(shè)備和流程來(lái)生產(chǎn)應(yīng)對(duì)各種病癥的信使RNA，而不是為每種疾病準(zhǔn)備單獨(dú)的制造設(shè)備（這是當(dāng)下的常用做法）。 ????對(duì)投資者而言，這一切意味著他們只需要簽一張支票，實(shí)際上就對(duì)制藥公司做出了幾十次甚至幾百次投資。此外，這個(gè)平臺(tái)得運(yùn)轉(zhuǎn)起來(lái)才行。但Moderna一旦得以運(yùn)轉(zhuǎn)，他們能夠治療的疾病幾乎就沒(méi)有限制，而該公司也無(wú)意約束自己的發(fā)展。Moderna如今已有45個(gè)活躍項(xiàng)目，有的是內(nèi)部項(xiàng)目，有的則是與AstraZeneca和Alexion Pharmaceuticals等戰(zhàn)略伙伴共同研發(fā)的，而且他們還計(jì)劃上馬更多項(xiàng)目（在得到這些新的投資后，公司有望將部分項(xiàng)目推進(jìn)到臨床試驗(yàn)的第二階段）。 ????Moderna還根據(jù)治療領(lǐng)域的不同，把許多項(xiàng)目交給他們自己的準(zhǔn)公司運(yùn)營(yíng)。這種做法使得Moderna看起來(lái)像是一個(gè)孵化器，而該公司的高管也不排除某些項(xiàng)目最終被剝離的可能性，剝離方式有可能是出售，甚至公開(kāi)上市，而Moderna自身則作為核心技術(shù)提供商和制造商。實(shí)際上，某些產(chǎn)品理論上可以在Moderna之前完成首次公開(kāi)募股。 ????當(dāng)然，投資者對(duì)此可不會(huì)抱怨。他們都能從中受益。（財(cái)富中文網(wǎng)） ????譯者：嚴(yán)匡正 ????審校：任文科 |
????Moderna Therapeutics this week announced that it raised $450 million in what is the largest-ever single round of venture capital funding for a biotech startup. Fortune has learned that the deal valued Moderna at around $3 billion, and means that the Cambridge, Mass.-based company now has $800 million of cash in the bank (including unspent past investments). ????All venture capital investments in biotech are, by their nature, highly-speculative. Binary scientific risk married with quasi-capricious regulatory risk. You might presume, therefore, that Moderna had somewhat tamped down on those dangers in order to raise so much money at such a high price tag. But you’d be wrong. In fact, Moderna is further away from commercialization than are most companies worth far less, as it still does not have a single drug candidate in human clinical trials. ????So how to explain the massive fundraising success, particularly with hedge fund and mutual funds that typically don’t back such early-stage endeavors (particularly when its CEO explicitly says that an IPO is not on the horizon)? ????The best I can do is to say that Moderna could be the single most revolutionary drug company to be formed in at least the past decade (or at least tied with Google-backed Calico, which wants to stop cellular aging). That statement comes drenched in all of the aforementioned risk caveats, but Moderna’s ambitions dwarf those of most any other company that is trying to treat Disease X. In other words, the promise proved just too tantalizing for many folks to pass up. ????Moderna’s core technology is designed to help people make medicines within their own cells, rather than create something in a lab which patients need to ingest or inject (i.e., the way all other biotech works). It does so by injecting messenger RNA into the body, and then that mRNA stimulates the person’s cells to create the needed therapeutic proteins. Patient, heal thyself. Equally important, Moderna claims that its mRNA design is able to evade the typical human immune response that has felled past mRNA efforts. ????Not only does this open up a massive number of therapeutic possibilities, but it also could make Moderna’s products significantly faster to test and cheaper to buy than are traditional drugs. Namely because it can use common mRNA manufacturing facilities and processes to create the mRNA that can be used for all sorts of indications, rather than having to create discrete ones for each new candidate (as is typically done today). ????For investors, all of this means that they are actually making dozens — if not hundreds — of pharma bets with a single check. Again, the platform needs to work. But, if it does, there are few limits to the number of ailments that Moderna could treat — and the company has no interest in limiting itself. It currently has 45 active programs both in-house and with strategic partners like AstraZeneca AZN 1.44% and Alexion Pharmaceuticals ALXN -2.20% , and has plans to launch plenty more (with the new money expected to get several of them into Phase II clinical trials). ????Moderna basically silos many of these programs into their own quasi-companies, based on therapeutic area. In that way it acts a bit like an incubator, and company executives leave open the possibility that certain programs could eventually be spun out via sales or even public offerings — with Moderna serving as the core technology provider and manufacturer. In fact, certain Moderna products could theoretically complete IPOs before Moderna does. ????Not that investors would complain, of course. They’d get a cut of all of it. |
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