Beam Therapeutics plans to go public

It was just last year that Beam Therapeutics came out of stealth. Now the Cambridge, Mass.-based startup has filed for a $100 million IPO.

Beam, which is working on base editing and helmed by the world’s leading CRISPR’ers — including Feng Zhang of the Broad Institute — has raised about $222 million to date, buoyed by a $135 million Series B round this past March. 

The company likens its base editing technology to a pencil, as it can erase and rewrite a single letter in the gene. The standard analogy for CRISPR, of course, is that it works like a pair of scissors — excising a small segment of genetic data.

The company will use the new funding for continued R&D, as well as for IMD-enabling studies and clinical trials, it said in its prospectus. Beam’s most advanced programs are in sickle cell and beta thalassemia — as well as in CAR-T applications for leukemia.