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.

Liquid biopsy startup Freenome Inc., of South San Francisco, reeled in $160 million in a series B financing that was led by RA Capital Management and Polaris Partners. The funds are earmarked to advance Freenome's multiomics blood testing platform for early cancer detection and to grow its laboratory and software capabilities.

David Southwell, a seasoned pharma exec and CEO of newly funded Tscan Therapeutics Inc., called from a small, unadorned conference room on the Harvard campus to talk about his new company. He's used to being on the clinical development side, where the accommodations are a bit more posh, but nonetheless he's pleased to be investigating T-cell therapy for cancer patients.

DUBLIN – Biontech SE closed a mammoth $325 million series B round to fund expansion of its clinical pipeline and to continue its ongoing investments in several different areas of manufacturing. The scale of the deal is of historic proportions – it is the biggest private equity investment in any comparable European biotechnology firm. It just edges ahead of Oxford, U.K.-based Immunocore Ltd.'s $320 million investment in 2015.