Blackstone Launches $4.6-Bn Life Sciences Fund

Blackstone, a private investment firm, has closed on its first fund in the life sciences, Blackstone Life Sciences, with $4.6 billion in total capital commitments.

The fund is focused on three main investment strategies: strategic collaborations with established life-science companies, late-stage product financings, and growth investments in emerging companies.

Blackstone Life Sciences has made several key investments this year (2020). In April (April 2020) Blackstone Life Sciences entered into a $2-billion strategic collaboration with Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, a Cambridge, Massachusetts-based biopharmaceutical company focused on RNA interference (RNAi) therapeutics. A key element of this investment was the acquisition of a royalty interest in inclisiran, a Novartis-owned investigational RNAi therapeutic for treating hypercholesterolemia (high cholesterol), currently under review by the US Food and Drug Administration.

In June 2020, Blackstone Life Sciences led a $350-million investment in Reata Pharmaceuticals, a Plano, Texas-headquartered clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company, to advance a potential medicine for Alport Syndrome, a kidney disease that afflicts children.

Also in June 2020, Blackstone Life Sciences and Medtronic, a Dublin, Ireland-based medical technology services and products company, announced a $33-million strategic collaboration to advance Medtronic‘s diabetes-management products. This was the first investment by Blackstone Life Sciences in the medical devices space.

Source: Blackstone

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