COLUMBUS, Ohio--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Forge Biologics, a gene therapy-focused contract development and manufacturing organization, today announced that it has raised $90 million in a Series C financing, bringing its total funding raised to date to $330 million. The current round was co-led by Drive Capital and Aisling Capital with an additional undisclosed strategic investor.
“We continue our ambitious mission to enable access to life changing gene therapies by fulfilling a key goal of bringing them from concept to reality,” said Timothy J. Miller, Ph.D., CEO, President, and Co-Founder of Forge Biologics. “To deliver on that mission, we’ve made great strides in our facility development, technology advancement, and hiring expansion. These new funds will help support this next measured phase of our growth focused on delivering new services to our clients so that we can support them from idea to impact. Each advancement we make goes towards serving our clients and their patient communities, and we are grateful to our investors for their confidence in our mission.”
The Company will use the funding to expand client offerings, including proprietary technologies, manufacturing systems, cell lines, and additional services to bolster its end-to-end manufacturing platform. Through the Company’s 200,000 square foot cGMP facility dedicated to AAV viral vector manufacturing, Forge will expand the number of offerings available to clients to help scale gene therapy programs from research to clinical and commercial manufacturing in its 20 cGMP suites utilizing its operational 50L, 500L, 1,000L and 5,000L bioreactors.
“Forge has grown tremendously over the last two years, hiring experienced talent and scaling the facility, technology, and client offerings according to their unique hybrid business model,” said Molly Bonakdarpour, General Partner at Drive Capital. “We believe that Forge is becoming an established leader in gene therapy manufacturing, consistent with Drive Capital’s focus to build and support market-defining companies.”
“We have confidence in the caliber of leadership at Forge, their technical expertise at all levels, and the meticulous attention to detail in every facet of the business,” said Andrew Schiff, M.D., Managing Partner at Aisling Capital. “The gene therapy industry has been constrained by technical, operational, and capacity constraints, and Forge is poised to tackle each of those areas to alleviate the manufacturing bottleneck as they set out to do.”
Recent Milestones Reached
Technology:
- Hired notable talent for key technical roles with gene therapy-specific expertise: Agnieszka Gornicka, Ph.D., Director, GMP Manufacturing; Ganesh Krishnamoorthy, Associate Director, Process Development
- Scaled the Company’s proprietary HEK 293 suspension platform process from 50L to 1000L
- Integrated new systems into its platform process such as single-use chromatography and automated fill-finish
Facility Expansion:
- Increased overall manufacturing footprint to over 200,000 square feet; buildout includes 20 cGMP suites utilizing 50L, 500L, 1,000L, and 5,000L bioreactors, with additional cGMP suites planned
Manufacturing Expertise:
- Formed an independent board of preeminent experts, a Scientific and Manufacturing Advisory Board (SMAB), to advise the Company on its gene therapy manufacturing offerings and therapeutics pipeline development with a distinct and strategic emphasis on manufacturing advancements
About Forge Biologics
Forge Biologics is a hybrid gene therapy contract manufacturing and clinical-stage therapeutics development company. Forge’s mission is to enable access to life changing gene therapies and help bring them from idea to reality. Forge’s 200,000 square foot facility utilizes 20 cGMP suites in Columbus, Ohio, the Hearth, to serve as its headquarters. The Hearth is a custom-designed cGMP facility focused on AAV manufacturing and can host end-to-end manufacturing services to accelerate gene therapy programs from preclinical through clinical and commercial stage manufacturing. By taking a patients-first approach, Forge aims to accelerate the timelines of these transformative medicines for those who need them the most. To learn more, visit www.forgebiologics.com.
