bluebird bio, Inc. (Nasdaq: BLUE) (“bluebird”) today announced that it has commenced an underwritten public offering of 20,000,000 shares of its common stock. bluebird also intends to grant the underwriters a 30-day option to purchase up to an additional 3,000,000 shares of its common stock to be sold in the offering. The offering, actual size and terms are subject to market conditions, and there can be no assurance as to whether or when the offering may be completed. All shares in the offering are to be sold by bluebird.

Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC and J.P. Morgan Securities LLC are acting as joint book running managers for the offering.

bluebird intends to use the net proceeds of the offering (i) to support commercialization and manufacturing for its two approved gene therapies, ZYNTEGLO and SKYSONA; (ii) to accelerate future commercialization activities for its gene therapy candidate, lovotibeglogene autotemcel (lovo-cel) for sickle cell disease, if approved; and (iii) to fund working capital and other general corporate purposes.

The offering is being made pursuant to an effective shelf registration statement on Form S-3, including a prospectus, that was filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”) on February 18, 2020 and was automatically effective upon filing. A preliminary prospectus supplement describing the terms of the offering will be filed with the SEC and will form a part of the effective registration statement. Copies of the preliminary prospectus supplement and accompanying prospectus relating to the public offering may be obtained, when available, by contacting Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC, Attention: Prospectus Department, 200 West Street, New York, NY 10282, by phone at (866) 471-2526, or by email at prospectus-ny@ny.email.gs.com; or J.P. Morgan Securities LLC, Attention: c/o Broadridge Financial Solutions, 155 Long Island Avenue, Edgewood, NY 11717, by phone at (866) 803-9204, or by email at prospectus-eq_fi@jpmorganchase.com. Before you invest, you should read the preliminary prospectus supplement and accompanying prospectus and the other documents that bluebird has filed with the SEC for more complete information about bluebird and the proposed offering.

This press release shall not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy these securities, nor shall there be any sale of these securities in any state or other jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to the registration or qualification under the securities laws of any such state or jurisdiction.

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Examples of forward-looking statements in this press release include, without limitation, statements regarding the consummation of the offering, the terms of the offering and the anticipated use of the net proceeds from the offering. All statements that are not statements of historical facts are, or may be deemed to be, forward-looking statements. Such forward-looking statements are based on historical performance and current expectations and projections about our future financial results, goals, plans and objectives and involve inherent risks, assumptions and uncertainties, including internal or external factors that could delay, divert or change any of them in the next several years, that are difficult to predict, may be beyond our control and could cause our future financial results, goals, plans and objectives to differ materially from those expressed in, or implied by, the statements. No forward-looking statement can be guaranteed. Forward-looking statements in this press release should be evaluated together with the many risks and uncertainties that affect bluebird bio’s business, particularly those identified in the risk factors discussion in bluebird bio’s Annual Report on Form 10-K, as updated by our subsequent Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, Current Reports on Form 8-K and other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. These risks include, but are not limited to: the risk that we may not realize expected cost savings from the restructuring, including the anticipated decrease in operational expenses, at the levels we expect; we may encounter additional delays in the development of our programs, including the imposition of new clinical holds or delays in resolving existing clinical holds, that may impact our ability to meet our expected timelines and increase our costs; the internal and external costs required for our ongoing and planned activities, and the resulting impact on expense and use of cash, may be higher than expected which may cause us to use cash more quickly than we expect or change or curtail some of our plans or both; our expectations as to expenses, cash usage and cash needs may prove not to be correct for other reasons such as changes in plans or actual events being different than our assumptions; the risk that the efficacy and safety results from our prior and ongoing clinical trials will not continue or be seen in additional patients treated with our product candidates; the risk that additional insertional oncogenic or other reportable events associated with lentiviral vector, drug product, or myeloablation will be discovered or reported over time; the risk that our eli-cel, beti-cel and lovo-cel programs may be subject to further delays in their development, including but not limited to the imposition of new clinical holds; the risk that lovo-cel may not be approved within the priority review timeframe or at all; and the risk that any one or more of our products and product candidates, including eli-cel, beti-cel or lovo-cel, will not be successfully developed, approved or commercialized. The forward-looking statements included in this press release are made only as of the date of this press release and except as otherwise required by applicable law, bluebird bio undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events, changed circumstances or otherwise.

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