Once high-flying Bluebird Bio sells itself to private equity after tough times for the gene therapy maker
By Angelica Peebles,
CNBC
| 02. 21. 2025
Bluebird Bio will sell itself to private equity firms Carlyle and SK Capital for about $30 million, the company said Friday, marking the end of the Bluebird’s fall from the one of the buzziest biotech firms to one that was on the cusp of running out of money.
Bluebird’s shareholders will receive $3 per share with the possibility of getting another $6.84 a share if Bluebird’s gene therapies reach $600 million in sales in any 12-month period by the end of 2027. Bluebird shares closed at $7.04 on Thursday. They fell 40% on Friday after the company announced the sale.
For more than thirty years, Bluebird has been at the forefront of creating one-time treatments that promised to cure genetic diseases. At one point, Bluebird’s market cap hovered around $9 billion as investors bought into the idea that the company could find success with its gene therapies. It’s fallen under $41 million after the company faced several scientific setbacks, separated its cancer work into another company and fell into financial despair.
The turning point came in 2018, when Bluebird...
Related Articles
By Matthew Cobb, Nature | 02.17.2025
On 24 February 1975, some 150 people met at the Asilomar Conference Grounds near Monterey on the Californian coast. They were mostly scientists from the United States, together with representatives of various companies and government agencies, and 16 journalists. Their...
By Angus Liu, Fierce Pharma | 02.21.2025
Pfizer is pulling further away from the gene therapy field with its decision to discontinue hemophilia product Beqvez.
The New York pharma is ending global development and commercialization of Beqvez less than a year after an FDA approval for the...
By Smriti Mallapaty, Nature | 02.20.2025
A two-and-a-half-year-old girl shows no signs of a rare genetic disorder, after becoming the first person to be treated for the motor-neuron condition while in the womb. The child’s mother took the gene-targeting drug during late pregnancy, and the child...
By Staff, GMWatch | 02.24.2025
In an open statement, civil society groups, scientists, and academics are challenging the democratic legitimacy of any conclusions or policy proposals that may arise from the 2025 Spirit of Asilomar and the Future of Biotechnology conference currently running from 23-26...
