Australian radiopharmaceutical company Advancell Co. Ltd. closed an AU$18 million (US$12.4 million) series B round that will take its lead targeted alpha-emitting radiotherapy, ADVC-001, for metastatic prostate cancer to the clinic by the end of 2022.
Orna Therapeutics Inc., which is pioneering a novel circular RNA protein expression technology in several therapeutic areas, has achieved lift-off. The Cambridge, Mass.-based company has closed a broadly based alliance in infectious disease and oncology with Merck & Co. Inc., under which it is getting $150 million up front and up to $3.5 billion in development, regulatory and sales-based milestones. In addition, Merck, of Rahway, N.J., is investing another $100 million in Orna’s equity, as part of its $221 million series B round, which the company also disclosed on Aug. 16.
Oricell Therapeutics Co. Ltd. has raised $120 million in a series B financing to support development of its cell therapy pipeline and technology platform, as well as the construction of a manufacturing plant. The round was jointly led by Qiming Venture Partners and Quan Capital Management LLC.
Sironax Ltd. has raised $200 million in a series B financing round to support the development of its receptor-interacting serine/threonine-protein kinase 1 (RIPK1) inhibitors. The latest financing has brought the capital raised by the Beijing and Shanghai-based company to more than $300 million to date.
Frontera Therapeutics Inc. raised $160 million in a series B funding round to develop its lead gene therapy product candidate for retinal disease, FT-001, for which INDs have been approved by the U.S. FDA and China NMPA.
Agomab Therapeutics NV raised $40.5 million in a series B extension led by Pfizer Inc., which has also come on board as an adviser on the development of AGMB-129, Agomab’s candidate therapy for fibrostenotic Crohn’s disease. The new cash raises the series B total to $114 million.
Mirobio Ltd. is poised to take two checkpoint agonists into the clinic in the treatment of autoimmune diseases, after closing a $97 million series B round. The most advanced program, MB-272, is an agonist of the B and T lymphocyte attenuator receptor that relays inhibitory signals to suppress the immune response. Mirobio says activating it has a “far reaching” regulatory effect, restoring self-tolerance across several major autoimmune diseases, including lupus.
Philadelphia’s Mineralys Therapeutics Inc. has secured a further $118 million to develop MLS-101, a potential hypertension drug in-licensed from Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma Corp.
Immunos Therapeutics AG closed a $74 million series B round to progress its first-in-class, multifunctional immuno-oncology drug candidate, IOS-1002, and to expand further its pipeline of biologic drugs based on immuno-stimulatory human leukocyte antigen molecules.
Luca Science Inc. has raised $30.3 million in an oversubscribed series B financing, enabling it to advance a mitochondria replacement therapy toward the clinic. The company is planning a phase Ib trial in myocardial infarction, in which 8 to 12 patients will receive injections of mitochondria immediately after having a heart attack.