AbSci Closes $15.4 M in Series D Funding to Accelerate Growth and Scale Disruptive Protein PrintingTM Technology, Announces Exclusive Co-Marketing Partnership with KBI Biopharma

ABSCI CLOSES $15.4 M IN SERIES D FUNDING TO ACCELERATE GROWTH AND SCALE DISRUPTIVE PROTEIN PRINTINGTM TECHNOLOGY, ANNOUNCES EXCLUSIVE CO-MARKETING PARTNERSHIP WITH KBI BIOPHARMA

VANCOUVER, Wash., Jan. 13, 2020 – AbSci, the Protein Printing™ company with a best-in-class E. coli cell line for rapid and low-cost biomanufacturing of complex biotherapeutics, today announced the completion of a $10.4M Series D financing led by KBI Biopharma and JSR Life Sciences. Existing investors Phoenix Venture Partners, Oregon Venture Fund, WRF Capital, and Columbia Ventures Corporation also participated in the financing. The financing also includes $5M in term debt. The proceeds from the financing will be used for expansion of AbSci facilities and team in order to meet commercial demand for AbSci's technology.    

AbSci's Protein Printing™ technology combines the power of E. coli SoluPro® with a cutting-edge synthetic biology platform for generation of high-diversity strain libraries and high-throughput screening assays to deliver unprecedented titers of complex biotherapeutic proteins with superior product quality. AbSci continues to accelerate its partnerships with industry-leading companies due to its track record providing enabling and scalable manufacturing solutions for next-generation biotherapeutics. In 2019, AbSci increased its revenue by over 800%. The Series D financing will support the company's continued aggressive growth by increasing capacity to meet growing demand from the biopharma industry for rapid, ultra-high yield and quality production of next-generation biotherapeutics.    

In addition, AbSci and KBI Biopharma have entered into an exclusive co-marketing agreement to jointly market and promote each other's technologies, products, and services. Under the agreement, KBI Biopharma, a leading biopharmaceutical CDMO providing fully integrated biopharmaceutical development and manufacturing services, has the exclusive right to market AbSci's Protein Printing™ technology worldwide and is AbSci's preferred CDMO for industrial scale-up of biologics developed using AbSci technology. This agreement will give partners a seamless path from cell line development to process optimization/scale up and cGMP manufacturing.