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Lizhu Pharmaceutical participates in the Series B financing of a new American cell therapy company.
Release time:
2021-01-22
January 7, 2021, Philadelphia.Focusing on the discovery and development of innovative immunotherapies.CARISMA Therapeutics Inc.Announced the completion of a $47 million Series B financing, bringing the company's total financing to nearly $109 million.
The Series B investment was led by Symbiosis II, LLC, with new investors Solasta Ventures and Livzon Pharmaceutical Group Inc. (Lizhu Pharmaceutical Group) participating.Additionally, this round of financing also included AbbVie Ventures, HealthCap, Wellington Partners, IP Group, TPG Biotech, Agent Capital, and MRL Ventures Fund.
On June 27, 2018, the company announced the completion of a $53 million Series A financing. The Series A financing was led by AbbVie Ventures and HealthCap, with existing seed investors IP Group, Penn Medicine, and Grazia Equity also participating, along with new investors Wellington Partners, TPG Biotech, MRL Ventures Fund, and Agent Capital.
The funds will be used to advance current R&D and discovery projects, including CARISMA's lead candidate CT-0508 (anti-human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2) targeted chimeric antigen receptor macrophages (CAR-M)) Phase I clinical trial. The agency recently initiated a peer study of CAR-M, with trial enrollment and patient screening for the first human study.These funds will also enable CARISMA to further develop its proprietary engineered macrophage platform, continue to expand its pipeline for cancer indications, and allow the platform to be applied to diseases beyond cancer.
President and CEO of CARISMA TherapeuticsSteven Kelly said: "We are at a leading turning point, and our lead project has officially entered the clinical trial phase of evaluation. This additional funding will allow us to further advance our mission to evaluate the potential of engineered macrophages." "We appreciate the support of new and existing investors, including SymBiosis II, LLC, which has a strong track record in investing in oncology and biotherapeutic companies."
CARISMA's discovery and development work focuses on the proprietary CAR-M platform developed at the University of Pennsylvania, designed to address challenges faced by other cell therapies in treating solid tumors, such as limited delivery to tumor sites, immunosuppressive tumor microenvironments, and heterogeneous expression of tumor-associated antigens. CARISMA's preclinical findings are outlined in "Human Chimeric Antigen Receptor Macrophages for Cancer Immunotherapy" and published in Nature Biotechnology (March 2020), indicating that CAR-M therapy may have the potential to overcome these challenges.
CARISMA aims to be the first company to develop CAR-M-based therapies for patients with advanced solid tumors and is launching a Phase I clinical trial of CT-0508 (HER2-targeted CAR-M) at two research centers in the U.S.: the University of Pennsylvania and the University of North Carolina. CARISMA's preclinical studies of CT-0508 have already demonstrated the potential of its CAR-M platform and its potential applicability in multiple therapeutic areas, including solid tumors with HER2 overexpression, which this preliminary clinical study will explore.
"We are excited to see the research on the potential of the CAR-M platform culminate in this first-in-human clinical trial," Michael Klichinsky, PharmD, PhD, co-inventor of CAR-M technology, co-founder and Vice President of Discovery at CARISMA Therapeutics. "This will be the first use of engineered macrophages in a clinical trial, and we look forward to further evaluating their potential impact on patients."
About CARISMA Therapeutics Inc.
CARISMA Therapeutics Inc. is a biopharmaceutical company dedicated to developing a differentiated proprietary cell therapy platform targeting engineered macrophages, which play a critical role in both innate and adaptive immune responses. The first application project developed in collaboration with the University of Pennsylvania is autologous chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) macrophages for the treatment of solid tumors. CARISMA Therapeutics is headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Dr. Saar Gill, Assistant Professor of Hematology-Oncology at the Perelman School of Medicine and Abramson Cancer Center at the University of Pennsylvania, is a co-founder of CARISMA and holds equity in the company. CARISMA has obtained certain intellectual property licenses owned by Penn from the University of Pennsylvania, and Dr. Gill's lab at the Perelman School of Medicine has received sponsored research funding from the company. Penn and Dr. Gill may also be entitled to additional financial benefits from technologies licensed and selected by CARISMA in the future.
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