Rarecyte Inc., a Seattle-based company making products for tissue and cell analysis, reported picking up $22 million in a series F financing round led by Healthquest Capital.

DUBLIN – Numab Therapeutics AG is banking an equity investment of CHF15 million (US$15.2 million) from its latest Asian partner, Sunshine Guojian Pharmaceutical (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., as part of a broad alliance to develop up to five multispecific antibodies from three programs based on Numab’s Match platform.

DUBLIN – Immunos Therapeutics AG raised CHF15 million (US$15.2 million) in a series A round to move a novel immuno-oncology platform designed to turn cold tumors hot into early clinical development.

BOSTON – For investors, immuno-oncology (I-O) is still proving "very hard" to buy into, said Christiana Bardon, portfolio manager at Burrage Capital, during a panel session at Biopharm America. "Honestly it was hard from the get-go. If you think about the original ipilimumab data that came from [Medarex Inc.], it was not obvious that [the drug] worked, right? It was like a head fake, actually. Now we're anxiously looking for the next-gen, but the truth is we've been utterly unsuccessful."

LONDON – Achilles Therapeutics Ltd. closed a £100 million (US$120 million) series B round to fund two proof-of-concept studies of its next-generation T-cell immunotherapy in solid tumors, and to build a commercial-scale, fully automated facility for manufacturing the personalized product.

Japanese biopharma Carna Biosciences Inc. and Gilead Sciences Inc., of Foster City, Calif., have signed a $470 million R&D collaboration to develop and commercialize small-molecule compounds in immuno-oncology. Under the agreement, Gilead will license worldwide rights to develop and commercialize inhibitors against an undisclosed immuno-oncology target from Kobe, Japan-based Carna. Additionally, Gilead will have access to Carna's lipid kinase drug discovery platform.