In mid-2014, Flagship Pioneering CEO Noubar Afeyan, Flagship Venture Partner Avak Kahvejian and Whitehead Institute Luminary Harvey Lodish stood together at a white board building an idea for a transformative cell therapy company.
One might have guessed that something great would have emerged from their scribbles!
Well, a mere four years later, Rhode Island just became the beneficiary of those scribbles with the announcement of Rubius Therapeutics plan to invest upwards of $155 million to build their bio-manufacturing facility in North Smithfield, Rhode Island. There, the company will for manufacture its transformative medicines to address a wide array of human disease conditions.
"This was a risk well worth taking."
It's a huge win for the Ocean State, as our southern New England region is realizing the promise of our new life sciences innovation economy.
Rubius Therapeutics is full of this promise. It isn’t just another cell therapy company, but rather has a proprietary cell therapy approach which could be truly transformative for patients.
Its technology uses red blood cells as the therapeutic delivery vehicle for proteins. Essentially, these cells have the ability to traverse the body via the circulatory system as well as avoid the body’s immune response — and remain stable over time periods that may extend to three or four months. Importantly, the types of diseases for which this type of cell therapy is amenable is vast, which offers great hope for patients.
Investors are taking notice. In fact, the company has raised more than $245 million since 2015. Two days before its presentation to the board of the Rhode Island Commerce Corporation for the state tax incentive approval towards building its bio-manufacturing facility, the company publicly announced its plans for an initial public offering on the stock market. It is now seeking to raise an additional $200 million, which, as noted in the release, could be “the largest IPO for a Massachusetts biotech in history”.
When one looks at the company’s story, one can realize why Rhode Islanders should stand proud acknowledging the potential for this company to change the lives of countless patients across the globe.
And finally, the fact that our Rhode Island government officials recognized the company’s mission and welcomed them, knowing that life sciences and biotech is not without a level of risk, shows just how much our state has grown up as well. This was a risk well worth taking.
Welcome to Rhode Island, Rubius Therapeutics. We wish you all the successes needed to make your new medicines a reality for the patients who wait. We know how hard the journey is.
