US-based cell therapy developer Nohla Therapeutics has reached the $56m second close of a series B round featuring pharmaceutical firm Celgene and life sciences real estate developer Alexandria Real Estate Equities.
Financial services and investment group Fidelity Management and Research (FMR) also took part in the round, as did University of Tokyo Edge Capital, Schroder Adveq, Premier Partners, Arch Venture Partners, 5AM Ventures and AML Biotech Partners.
Alexandria Real Estate Equities participated through its venture capital arm, Alexandria Venture Investments, backing the $45m first tranche in May this year with FMR, Arch Venture Partners, 5AM Ventures and AML.
Nohla is developing off-the-shelf cell therapies for patients suffering from critical diseases such as haematologic malignancies, a form of cancer.
The company’s lead product candidate, dilanubicel, is a stem and progenitor cell therapy that will help generate red blood cells on a short-term basis. It is currently in phase 2 clinical trials.
Katie Fanning, president and CEO of Nohla Therapeutics, said: “We have achieved a number of significant milestones in the first half of 2018 including further advancement of our lead product, dilanubicel.
“This additional funding will support our ongoing clinical development of dilanubicel in allogeneic transplant and acute myeloid leukaemia, as well as support the advancement of discovery programs from our platform.”
The series B round comes after Nohla raised $64.5m from investors including Arch Venture Partners, 5AM Ventures and Jagen Group across two rounds in 2015 and late 2016.