NEW YORK – SomaLogic said on Monday that it has entered an agreement to merge with CM Life Sciences II, a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) sponsored by affiliates of Casdin Capital and Corvex Management, with the purpose of listing on the Nasdaq Global Market.
Upon completion of the transaction, expected in the third quarter, CM Life Sciences II will be renamed and its common stock will list on the Nasdaq under the ticker symbol SLGC.
Through the transaction, which values SomaLogic at roughly $1.2 billion, the company is expected to receive cash proceeds of approximately $651 million, including $276 million currently in CM Life Sciences II's trust account and $374 million from a common stock private investment in public equity (PIPE) funding from investors including funds by Casdin Capital, Corvex Management, Janus Henderson Investors, SB Management, a subsidiary of SoftBank Group, T.Rowe Price Associates, separate accounts advised by ARK Invest, Farallon Capital, Perceptive Advisors, funds and accounts managed by Counterpoint Global, and other existing investors as well as new strategic investor Illumina and existing strategic investor Novartis Pharma.
SomaLogic will use the proceeds for technology development, new product offerings, expansion of its commercial infrastructure, and the pursuit of additional health system partnerships. Up to $50 million of the proceeds will be used to repurchase shares from legacy investor stockholders.
"We believe our capital and strategic partnership will help SomaLogic accelerate its growth and further solidify its market position as the leading enabling platform and clinical applications company in the proteomics space," Keith Meister, chairman of CM Life Sciences II, said in a statement. "It is truly unique to have the opportunity to partner with a company that we anticipate having long-term revenue growth rates of at least 30 percent, while also helping to drive health outcomes at scale."
At closing, SomaLogic plans to add new directors to its board including Kevin Conroy, chairman and CEO of Exact Sciences; Troy Cox, former CEO of Foundation Medicine and senior VP of US BioOncology for Genentech; and Steve Quake, professor of bioengineering and applied physics at Stanford University.
SomaLogic's SomaScan platform uses the company's aptamer-based affinity reagents, called Somamers, to measure proteins in patient samples, typically in blood. The platform recently expanded to measure 7,000 proteins per sample, and SomaLogic believes that analyzing this number of proteins across large numbers of samples will provide it with the data it needs to identify correlations between protein levels and patient health that it can package as tests.
The company closed a $214 million Series A round in December. It is the latest in a string of life science companies to go public in recent months via SPAC.