PHILADELPHIA, March 1, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- CARISMA Therapeutics Inc., a biopharmaceutical company focused on discovering and developing innovative immunotherapies, announced today the second closing of its Series B equity financing, bringing the total amount raised in this round to $59 million and CARISMA's total capital raised to date to nearly $121 million.
The second closing of the Series B round included additional funding from founding investors, IP Group, Inc. and Penn Medicine, and new investor 4BIO Capital. They join the initial Series B investor syndicate of SymBiosis II, Solasta Ventures, Livzon Pharmaceuticals Group, AbbVie Ventures, HealthCap, Wellington Partners, TPG Biotech, Agent Capital and MRL Ventures Fund.
Proceeds from the financing will be used to advance current pipeline and discovery programs, including the Phase I clinical trial of CARISMA's lead candidate, CT-0508, an anti-human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2) targeted chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) macrophage discovered at the University of Pennsylvania (Penn). CARISMA recently initiated trial enrollment and patient screening for the first-of-its-kind, first-in-human study of CT-0508 at Penn and the University of North Carolina.
The funding will also allow CARISMA to further develop its proprietary engineered-macrophage platform, continue pipeline expansion in cancer indications and enable the platform's application to disease areas outside of cancer.
The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (LLS) Therapy Acceleration Program® (TAP) also participated in the second closing of Carisma's Series B equity financing to support one or more CAR macrophage cell therapy programs for hematological malignancies.