BridgeBio Gets $750M on Credit to Fuel Long List of Programs

BridgeBio Pharma has secured credit assistance worth as much as $750 million to move forward with its research and development efforts for the treatment of cancers and genetic diseases.

The definitive credit facility agreement it signed with a syndicate of lenders allows it to borrow up to $750 million, effectively bringing its spending capacity to more than $1.2 billion. The company reported its existing cash balance of $599.6 million in September.

“Since our founding, we have believed in the power and importance of innovative financing approaches to advance critical biomedical research and drug development, and we are grateful that our broad diversified pipeline enables us to do this. By bringing on this additional capital, we have the potential to help more people living with genetic diseases and cancers as quickly as possible,” said Brian Stephenson, Ph.D., CFA, the chief financial officer of BridgeBio, in a statement.

Based on BridgeBio’s current pipeline of programs, this total amount will be sufficient to carry over 30 drug development and discovery programs well into 2024. This does not include any milestone readouts the company might see in the short term.

News of the financing agreement comes on the heels of BridgeBio’s $150 million repurchase of its own common stock under the 2021 Share Repurchase Program. The new debt facility also replaces its $100 million credit deal with Hercules.

“Potential breakthrough medicines should never languish on the shelf because of a lack of funding. By seizing inventive financing tools to fund its growing R&D pipeline, BridgeBio is working to ensure that promising medicines in development can advance into the clinic and toward potential commercial approval,” added Andrew Lo, Ph.D., the co-founder of BridgeBio and a member of the board of directors.

Key features of the new program include $450 million funded on November 17 and another $300 million to be given at its option if its Phase III ATTRibute-CM trial of a TTR stabilizer to treat transthyretin amyloid cardiomyopathy (ATTR-CM) achieves positive topline results by the end of 2022. The credit facility matures on November 17, 2026 and has a fixed interest rate of 9%.

BridgeBio was founded in 2015 and has since developed a stable of more than 30 projects in its drug pipeline. Two of its programs have already gone commercial: NULIBRY (fosdenopetrin) for synthetic cPMP for molybdenum cofactor deficiency type A and TRUSELTIQ (high-dose infigrantinib), an FGFR1-3 inhibitor for FGFR3+ cancers. Its ATTR-CM therapy Acoramidis is on its Phase III trial phase.