US-based T-cell immunotherapy developer Tmunity Therapeutics completed a $75m series B round featuring antiviral drug producer Gilead Sciences and cell therapy services provider Be The Match BioTherapies yesterday.
Venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz led the round, which included its own Cultural Leadership Fund in addition to Westlake Village BioPartners, University of Pennsylvania and BrightEdge, American Cancer Society’s philanthropic impact vehicle.
Tmunity is working on immunotherapies for cancer, infectious and autoimmune diseases and will channel the funding into advancing a pipeline of 14 drug candidates towards clinical testing. It also plans to strengthen its cell therapy manufacturing resources and the vertically-integrated viral vector it has developed.
The company closed a $135m series A round in April 2018 featuring Gilead Sciences and Be The Match BioTherapies as well as Ping An Ventures and Lilly Asia Ventures, corporate venturing vehicles for insurance group Ping An and pharmaceutical firm Eli Lilly.
VC firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers and unnamed affiliates supplied $35m of the cash while University of Pennsylvania and Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy also invested.
Tmunity had previously received $10m from Lilly Asia Ventures and the University of Pennsylvania’s Penn Medicine centre in 2016, and said this week it has now raised $231m in funding altogether.
Usman Azam, MD, Tmunity’s president and CEO, said: “We are fortunate to be funded by impressive investors who share our commitment to patients and our vision to dramatically change the way cancer is treated.
“We see ourselves leading the innovation of the future of oncology treatment by uniting our foundational competences in cell therapy with expertise in building new constructs, translating them and getting them into the clinic.”
