ElevateBio

ElevateBio develops novel cell, gene and regenerative therapies by leveraging technologies such as gene editing, Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells (iPSCs), and cell, protein, and vector engineering. It develops its own therapies whilst also offering its technologies to other biotech and pharmaceutical companies to accelerate the drug development process. It also provides manufacturing support to other cell and gene therapy companies through its centralized R&D and manufacturing company BaseCamp, which offers process development services, current Good Manufacturing Practices (cGMP) grade manufacturing of cell and viral vectors such as adeno-associated virus (AAV), and quality assurance. 

The company’s focus lies on spinning out separate entities for specific therapeutic areas or indications, and has thus far disclosed three such spin-outs: 1) AlloVir (in partnership with Baylor College of Medicine) to tackle infectious diseases primarily targeting 12 viruses; 2) HighPassBio (joint venture with gene editing company Fred Hutchinson to prevent relapsing leukemia; 3) Life Edit Therapeutics (wholly owned gene editing company) to target genetic diseases. 

Life Edit Therapeutics, which was acquired by ElevateBio in October 2021 , maintains a large database of ribonucleic acid (RNA)-guided nucleases (RGNs), base editors, and Protospacer Adjacent Motifs (PAMs)—short sequences that support an enzyme to edit a gene—for greater specificity and broader genome coverage. Life Edit’s gene editing platform enables both in vivo (gene editing done inside the body) delivery and ex vivo (gene editing done in a specialized laboratory and returned to the body) engineering. 

Key customers and partnerships

The company has entered into a number of partnerships to offer its manufacturing capabilities and BaseCamp services, which include a 10-year partnership with the Massachusetts General Hospital (July 2019) and a five-year collaboration with the Boston Children’s Hospital (June 2021) and TCR2 Therapeutics (November 2020).

Most recently, ElevateBio partnered with Xcell Biosciences in January 2024 to develop cell and gene therapies. Through the partnership, ElevateBio became the first member of Xcellbio’s beta program for its new AVATAR Foundry device. In addition, Michael Paglia, Chief Technology Officer at ElevateBio’s BaseCamp, joined Xcellbio’s Scientific Advisory Board. Further, ElevateBio BaseCamp scientists gained access to Xcellbio’s AVATAR incubator system for cell therapy research and development as well as two new platforms: the AVATAR Ai system for measuring the potency of cell therapies and the AVATAR Foundry system for cGMP cell therapy manufacturing.

ElevateBio also partnered with Kyverna Therapeutics in September 2023 to advance a CAR-T platform. Through the partnership, the companies agreed to expand process development and production of Ingenui-T-derived chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapies.

In February 2023, ElevateBio’s subsidiary, Life Edit Therapeutics, partnered with Moderna Therapeutics to develop novel therapeutics for genetic and other diseases. Soon after, Life Edit entered a partnership with Novo Nordisk in May 2023 to develop novel base-editing treatments for a number of diseases.

Funding and financials

In a Series D funding round in May 2023 led by the AyurMaya Capital Management Fund, ElevateBio raised USD 401 million to fuel the development of its gene-editing platforms and to support its expansion plans. This round followed the company’s substantial USD 525 million Series C round in March 2021, bringing the total funds raised to date to USD 1.2 billion.