Pharmaceutical firm Novartis invested $75m in US-based gene therapy developer Poseida Therapeutics yesterday to lead its $142m series C round.
Life sciences investment firm Malin also took part in the round, as did Aisling Capital, Pentwater Capital, Perceptive Advisors, Longitude Capital, Vivo Capital and Tavistock Group’s Boxer Capital unit.
Poseida Therapeutics is using gene engineering technologies to develop treatments for orphan genetic diseases, haematological malignancies and solid tumours.
The company’s lead drug candidate, P-BCMA-101, is in a phase 1 trial for relapsed/refractory multiple myeloma. Poseida’s preclinical candidates include treatments targeting prostate cancer, multiple myeloma and solid tumours.
Poseida had filed for a $115m initial public offering in January this year but the series C round coincided with it officially withdrawing the IPO application.
Longitude Capital led an oversubscribed $30.5m series B round for Poseida in April 2018, investing alongside Malin, Vivo Capital and Tavistock Group, after undisclosed investors had provided $11.2m in August 2017 according to a securities filing. Malin was among the investors in Poseida’s $30m series A round in 2015.
Eric Ostertag, Poseida’s chief executive, said: “We welcome the support and investment from Novartis, a leader in the cell and gene therapy field.
“They are joined by an impressive group of new investors whose commitment enables us to accelerate the pursuit of our bold vision to create gene therapy product candidates that could result in single-treatment cures for numerous oncologic indications and orphan genetic diseases, with an initial focus on chimeric antigen receptor T cell therapies.”