Caris Life Sciences said today it has raised $150 million in growth capital in the form of senior secured debt and convertible notes from TPG Sixth Street Partners (TSSP), saying the funding would in part accelerate development of its Next Generation Profiling offerings.
Next Generation Profiling combines the company’s Caris Molecular Intelligence and ADAPT Biotargeting System service offerings with its proprietary artificial intelligence analytics engine DEAN, with the goal of offering more precise treatment recommendations by analyzing the whole exome, whole transcriptome and complete cancer proteome.
In addition to launching those offerings, Caris said, it will use the capital to expand its commercial organization, increase its clinical and R&D laboratory capacity, enhance its biopharmaceutical business development capabilities, pursue patent enforcement, and carry out other strategic corporate initiatives.
Caris reasons that it can tap into growing market support for tumor profiling—including biopharma’s increased focus on precision medicine and the federal government’s support for concurrent reviews by the FDA and Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) for diagnostics deemed innovative.
“With increasing demand for more precise and personalized treatment information to improve clinical outcomes and drug development, we believe this is the opportune time for Caris to complete a significant private capital raise and invest in our future growth,” Caris Chairman and CEO David D. Halbert said in a statement.
Until now, Halert has sponsored and funded Caris exclusively. Caris said that the growth capital investment by TSSP—a global credit investment platform with $25 billion in assets under management—represents the first external capital to be raised since 2011 by the company, which is headquartered in Irving, TX
TSSP’s senior secured debt and convertible notes combined the flexibility of growth capital with limited equity dilution, Caris added.