New Biopharma Manufacturing Company Founded by Booth Alum Robert Nelsen Raises $800 Million

Robert Nelsen, MBA ’87, is a co-founder and a managing director of ARCH Venture Partners. (Image credit: ARCH Venture Partners)

RESILIENCE (National Resilience, Inc.) is a new company founded by University of Chicago Booth School of Business alum Robert Nelsen, MBA ’87 – with a commitment to tackling some of biopharma’s biggest problems with “a whole new business model.”

RESILIENCE has raised more than $800 million of capital following the recent Series B raise led by ARCH Venture Partners and 8VC with participation by GV and NEA. Other investors include public mutual funds, US-based pharmaceutical companies, foundations, family offices, pension funds, and others.

According to the company, it will invest in developing new technologies to manufacture complex medicines, including cell and gene therapies, viral vectors, vaccines, and proteins.

Spanning the US, Canada, and other “partner nations” with headquarters in San Diego and Boston, RESILIENCE has secured “multiple revenue generating facilities” and over 750 thousand square feet of operating space that it said will come online over the next year.

“We created RESILIENCE to reimagine biopharmaceutical manufacturing through unprecedented investment in technology and a best-in-class team to execute our vision,” said Nelsen, who is also a managing director at ARCH Venture Partners, in a press release.

“COVID-19 has exposed critical vulnerabilities in medical supply chains, and today’s manufacturing can’t keep up with scientific innovation, medical discovery, and the need to rapidly produce and distribute critically important drugs at scale. We are committed to tackling these huge problems with a whole new business model.”

“Bob has become one of the most prominent and successful biotech venture capitalists in the world,” said Steven Neil Kaplan, Neubauer Family Distinguished Service Professor of Entrepreneurship and Finance at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and Kessenich E.P. Faculty Director of the Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, speaking of Nelsen, who is among several alumni on the senior leadership team at ARCH.

ARCH, which stands for Argonne Chicago, was started at the University of Chicago in the mid-80s to commercialize University of Chicago technology. Today, the company has become “one of the very best life science venture funds,” said Kaplan.