Obsidian Therapeutics, a US-based engineered cell and gene therapy biotechnology developer, has completed a $115m series B round that included pharmaceutical companies Amgen, Bristol Myers Squibb and Vertex Pharmaceuticals.
Venture capital fund The Column Group led the round, which was filled out by RA Capital Management, Surveyor Capital, Deep Track Capital, Cowen Healthcare Investments, Logos Capital, Atlas Venture, Samsara Biocapital, Pivotal BioVenture Partners, Vertex Ventures and Soleus Capital, while Amgen invested through corporate VC arm Amgen Ventures.
Founded in 2015, Obsidian is developing gene therapies to control protein activity in cells to treat hard-to-manage diseases. Its technology suite includes tumour infiltrating lymphocyte (TILs) with the potential to fight cancer.
The company will use the funding to accelerate its main TIL programme, cytoTIL15, to treat multiple types of tumour, in addition to commercialising its products.
Obsidian had raised $49.5m in a 2017 series A led by GV, a corporate VC subsidiary of internet and technology conglomerate Alphabet, that also featured Amgen Ventures and pharmaceutical companies Takeda and ShangPharma’s respective VC subsidiaries: Takeda Ventures and ShangPharma Investment Group.
Life sciences real estate investment trust Alexandria Real Estate Equities’ strategic investment arm, Alexandria Venture Investments, also participated in the round, alongside Atlas Venture and Vertex Ventures.
Paul Wotton, Obsidian’s CEO, said: “We are pleased to have the support and partnership from this syndicate of premier investors.
“With this funding, we will continue to advance our transformative cytoTIL15 program into clinical studies to treat patients suffering from solid tumours and to further expand our pipeline of engineered TIL therapies.”
