Blackstone Group L.P. (NYSE: BX) shares dipped on Thursday after the company announced its newest investment. This is a first for Blackstone, moving into the life sciences industry, which it has historically avoided.
In the announcement, Blackstone said that it has agreed to acquire Clarus, a leading global life sciences investment firm that has raised $2.6 billion since its founding.
This acquisition will launch Blackstone Life Sciences, a private investment platform with capabilities to invest across the life-cycle of companies and products within the key life sciences sectors. The business will fill a critical void in the industry, which is seeing unprecedented growth but lacks the necessary funding to bring medicines and health care technologies to market.
Blackstone Life Sciences will build on Clarus’s significant domain expertise and record of success, and Blackstone’s experience, operating platform and global scale, to jointly advance breakthrough products to address unmet medical needs.
Clarus has offices in the life sciences hubs of Boston and San Francisco and is focused on funding growth-stage investments, often in partnership with major biopharmaceutical companies through R&D collaborations. These investments bring to market promising new medicines that improve patients’ lives.
Jon Gray, Blackstone’s president and chief operating officer, commented:
This is a unique moment where rapid advancements in science and technology are creating unprecedented innovation and unparalleled impact on human health. Private capital can play an important role in accelerating the lengthy clinical development process to help bring vital, but underfunded, drugs to market. Building on the foundation of the world-class Clarus team, Blackstone Life Sciences is uniquely suited to provide much needed capital and expertise to this sector.
Shares of Blackstone Group were last seen down about 2% on Thursday at $38.09, with a consensus analyst price target of $44.05 and a 52-week trading range of $29.57 to $40.60.
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