Lucy Therapeutics Builds a High-Tech Lab Space and Quickly Advances Its Science

Challenge


Lucy Therapeutics, an early-stage biotechnology company that develops therapies for neurological disorders, launched in 2019 and set up shop in LabCentral, a biotechnology incubator space in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Like most young companies on a mission, Lucy Therapeutics wanted to focus on advancing its science, which would serve an unmet healthcare need and help many people. The organization had raised funding by selling equity, but accelerating progress meant investing that funding into R&D and hiring the best people, rather than wasting it on depreciating assets like lab equipment and furniture.

So, when it came time to move out of the incubator and build a new private lab space in 2022, Lucy Therapeutics sought a new source of funding that would enable the organization to build a high-tech lab space—without depleting the precious capital the growing biotech had raised.

Solution


CSC offered Lucy Therapeutics a flexible, non-dilutive equipment lease to finance nearly 100% of all the equipment and furniture needed for the new facility build.

“If you become successful enough to move out of an incubator—which is the goal—you’re starting from scratch, and you must build an entire infrastructure. CSC took care of that without eating up the cash we raised from our early fundraising efforts. It’s a big relief, and it helped to accelerate the development of the company,” says Bryan Keaney, the CFO of Lucy Therapeutics. 

With the equipment lease, Lucy Therapeutics could focus on what mattered most: advancing the science.

Results

With equipment financing from CSC, Lucy Therapeutics is realizing these benefits:

• Maintained ownership with nondilutive financing
• Increased cash flow with predictable payments
• Preserved availability on other debt facility
• Experienced a simpler, more flexible financing process
• Improved asset management with CSC’s customizable portal
• Enjoyed simpler—vendor agnostic—procurement

“If we hadn’t received an equipment lease from CSC, we would have had to spend our investor money to build the facility. We would have had a much shorter cash runway to work with, and it would reduce the amount of time we could spend on development. That creates risk and could potentially make it harder to raise more capital,” Bryan adds.

As with many of CSC’s clients, Lucy Therapeutics considers CSC a long-term strategic partner. “In our new facility, we have room to grow. When the time comes, we’ll be coming back to CSC to increase our lease line so we can expand. It’s invaluable to have a partner that can grow with you,” Bryan says.