US-based immunotherapy developer Dragonfly Therapeutics has increased its overall equity and partnership financing to $300m, having raised an undisclosed sum in a round led by financial services and investment group Fidelity.
The round follows a similarly undisclosed amount in 2017 from investors including pharmaceutical firm Celgene, the Duke of Bedford and members of the Disney family.
Dragonfly is developing immuno-oncology therapies using its Trinket platform that are intended to treat cancer by utilising natural killer cells as well as T cells and B cells to attack cancer cells.
The approach focuses on counterbalancing immune suppressive factors in the microenvironment of tumours. Dragonfly is looking to develop drugs that can be used in singular treatments or in combination with other cancer immunotherapies.
The company’s co-founders include Tyler Jacks, director of the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at MIT, and David Raulet, who directs a research laboratory at University of California, Berkeley that concentrates on researching NK cells and T cells.
Bill Haney, Dragonfly’s co-founder and chief executive, said: “This investment round strengthens Dragonfly’s capacity to advance our internal pipeline of drug candidates deep into the clinic.
“We are delighted that investors see our transition to a clinical-stage company last year as a strong foundation from which to advance a series of our internal drugs for patients, even as we expand our work making drug candidates for our pharma collaborators.”
Although Dragonfly has not stated details concerning the proportion of equity and partnership funding it has received, Celgene provided $33m upfront as part of a 2017 licensing deal and a further $50m in late 2018 to license a further four drug candidates.
