Digging into Beam Therapeutics
Mostly science, some financials (~9k words)
I started writing this article on X then mid-way through tried to port everything over to Substack but it was such a pain. I figure most of you have X accounts so please click here for the full writeup. Future posts will be Substack native. I’ve pasted the financial section below from the writeup, but all the good stuff (the science) is in the here. It would take me a half day to port the science over with all the figures, links, and formatting so it will live just on X for now.
Financials
Beam Therapeutics ($beam) is a clinical-stage gene editing company with active programs in sickle cell disease (SCD), alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency (AATD), and glycogen storage disease type 1a. They are sitting on 1.25B in cash as of Dec 31, 2025 which includes the cash they received from BMS’ acquisition of Orbital Therapeutics (Beam owned ~17% of Orbital). Beam‘s cash is expected to be sufficient into 2029 through “risto-cel launch and BEAM-302 (AATD gene editor) pivotal trial development plan”. Beam’s stock price sits at $25.5/share which sits comfortably off the 2025 lows of $17/share. But, the share price has been flat over the past 2 years despite many updates from a clinical and regulatory standpoint. 117M shares fully-diluted is the count as of Sep 30, 2025. Therefore, the effective market cap is ~3B as of Mar 11, 2026.
On Feb 24, 2026, Beam announced a new financing agreement for a “senior secured term loan facility of up to $500 million” consisting of 1) initial draw of 100M on Feb 24, 2026, 2) potential 100M draw after risto-cel (sickle cell ex vivo editor) BLA submission, 3) potential 100M after risto-cel FDA approval, 4) potential 100M after risto-cel achieves revenue target, 5) a potential 100M subject to specific agreements among company and lenders. Matures on Feb 24, 2023 (7 years from start), with annual interest rate equal to 3-month SOFR + 6.5% or base rate plus margin. Further, “Among other permissions, the Company is permitted, on terms and conditions set forth in the Financing Agreement, to have outstanding convertible unsecured notes in an amount not to exceed $400 million”. The effective interest rate is 10%. So, Beam must pay 2.5M per quarter to service the initial 100M. If they draw more, they will pay more. Reasonably, the BLA-submission will enforce Jan 2027 draw down, BLA-acceptance maybe Q3 2027, and unclear about revenue target and other agreements. Maximum per quarter interest payment should be ~12.5M per quarter. Of course, it is tied to SOFR so if Fed lowers or raises rates, things may change. This loan implies two things: 1) cash reserves went up by 100M immediately, and 2) if beam is able to commercialize risto-cel, they have capital to use for that specific purpose with an interest rate of 10% and upside for their stock far above that.
Beam therapeutics is a platform company. A non-exhaustive set of relevant comparisons are KRYS (7.5B market cap), ARWR (8B market cap), WVE (2.6B market cap), ALNY (42B market cap), IONS (12B market cap). These companies have gone after different indications and market sizes, and some have executed way better than others. But, this is to say that where beam ends up comes down to continued execution.
More relevant comparisons for Beam are: 1) Verve Therapeutics (PCSK9 and ANGPTL3 editor for ASCVD) which was acquired by Lilly in 2025 for 1B in cash plus an extra 300M contingent on certain outcomes and 2) Orbital therapeutics (in vivo CAR T that used the same LNP technology as Beam was acquired by BMS in 2025 for 1.5B in cash. Note that Verve had 434M in cash when the Lilly deal was announced and its unclear how much cash Orbital had on hand at the time of acquisition. Orbital had non-human primate data but no human data and Verve had a phase 1b trial in progress. This means LLY paid ~600M in guaranteed cash for Verve’s assets. The Orbital premium over cash is likely to be over 1B given their last round was a 270M Series A in late 2023. Translated to Beam, an acquisition target of cash on hand plus 600M or 1B implies a 1.85B or 2.25B takeout value, respectively. Share price on fully diluted count tracks to $16 and $19, respectively. This is, of course, the lowest value possible given that BEAM has significantly more human data than Verve or Orbital and at least as high a probability of success in their intended indications. Further, for Verve-Lilly, Beam is eligible to receive up to 350M in future development-stage payments upon completion of certain clinical, regulatory and alliance events of which 25M has already been received. Before we cover BEAMs clinical programs, a word on their partnerships and management team. John Evans (Beam CEO) emphasized that Beam will continue to pursue drug development partnerships. Beam has received 900M in cash so far from partners, gets to learn from others’ endeavors into targeting different organs and optimize their own approach. Receiving cash to pressure test and iterate on their own technology stack is nice. An example of this is their deal with Orbital which included sharing lipid nanoparticle (LNP) technology. As John Evans (Beam CEO) pointed out, that means the same LNP stack can be used to target non-liver cells (i.e., T cells in Orbital’s case). Another such example is their partnership with Apellis, APLS, (75M up front in cash and 50-50 US co-development and co-commercialization agreement to one program). APLS plans to submit an IND in 2H 2026 for a one-time neonatal FcRn treatment using base editing technology from Beam and lipid nanoparticle technology licensed from Acuitas. I assume the APLS-BEAM LNP for FcRn is targeted to a cell type, and if so, It is likely that macrophages or endothelial cells are their intended target. We will know more as they disclose.