Chimera Bioengineering Inc. has been selected as the winner of the Asian Fund for Cancer Research's (AFCR) 2021 BRACE Award Venture Competition, contributing $500,000 as part of a recent $7.5 million capital infusion and bringing to $26 million the company’s total amount raised to date.

Engimmune Therapeutics AG has raised CHF15.5 million (US$16.7 million) in a seed round, as it prepares to address efficacy and safety shortcomings that currently constrain T-cell receptor and soluble TCR cancer therapies. The Basel, Switzerland-based company’s technology brings together genome editing, functional screening, deep mutational sequencing and machine learning, to engineer synthetic T-cell receptors that are highly specific to a chosen tumor antigen, increasing affinity and safety and avoiding off-target effects.

After raising $17 million in seed funding, immunotherapy-focused biotech company, LTZ Therapeutics Inc., is announcing plans for the fledgling company whose acronym stands for “Lift to Zenith.” CEO and co-founder Robert Li told BioWorld that the company’s three-tiered immunotherapy platform will focus on reducing immunosuppression, reprogramming innate immunity and modulating adaptive immunity.

For Kevin Friedman, the secret to making newly emergent Kelonia Therapeutics Inc. a success is reducing complexity and keeping everything as simple as possible. The Boston-based company just raised $50 million in series A funding to further its development of genetic medicines encompassing a range of diseases.

Chimera Bioengineering Inc. has been selected as the winner of the Asian Fund for Cancer Research's (AFCR) 2021 BRACE Award Venture Competition, contributing $500,000 as part of a recent $7.5 million capital infusion and bringing to $26 million the company’s total amount raised to date.

Arrowhead Pharmaceuticals Inc. and Vivo Capital LLC have launched a joint venture named Visirna Therapeutics for RNA interference therapeutics in the greater China market. Arrowhead is the majority shareholder of the new entity, while Vivo invested $60 million in the new entity.

Mitorx Therapeutics Ltd. is poised to develop small molecules that reverse impaired sulphide signaling underlying degenerative diseases ranging from Duchenne muscular dystrophy to Alzheimer’s disease. The company was formed some time ago as a spinout from Exeter University, where the founding scientist Matt Whiteman is professor of experimental therapeutics. It is showing its colors for the first time after closing a seed funding round.

A technology developed at the University of Birmingham, U.K., has been spun off as a potential treatment for ocular surface diseases. The platform technology from startup Healome Therapeutics Ltd. was developed by a team of material scientists at the University’s Healthcare Technologies Institute (HTI) that translates health technology concepts to products for clinical trials.

Forcefield Therapeutics Ltd. has arrived on the scene with £5.5 million (US$7 million) in funding to advance development of naturally occurring proteins that have been shown to arrest the loss of cardiomyocytes in the immediate aftermath of myocardial infarction.