SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO – Arsenal Biosciences, a clinical stage programmable cell therapy company focused on engineering advanced CAR T-cell therapies for solid tumors, announced the close of an oversubscribed $325 million Series C financing round. The funding round included new investors ARCH Venture Partners, Milky Way Investments Group, Regeneron Ventures, NVentures (NVIDIA’s venture capital arm), Luma Group, funds and accounts advised by T. Rowe Price Associates, Inc., Rock Springs Capital, among others, with ongoing support from existing investors the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy (PICI), SoftBank Vision Fund 2, Bristol-Myers Squibb Company, Westlake Village BioPartners, Kleiner Perkins, Byers Capital, and Hitachi Ventures.
Proceeds from the financing will be used to advance ArsenalBio’s lead programs through development as the company continues to build its pipeline of therapeutic candidates for solid tumor cancers based on its proprietary T cell engineering technology, including logic gating. The funds will also drive further innovation in developing tools and processes for identifying new candidate cell therapies, helping ArsenalBio remain at the forefront of the rapidly evolving field of cell therapy, and bringing it closer to its goal of addressing unmet needs across the oncology category.
“Our initial clinical trials and preclinical studies have shown the promise of our T cell engineering approach and have given us the confidence to broaden the application of our technology to address additional cancer types,” said Ken Drazan, M.D., ArsenalBio’s co-founder, CEO and Chairman. “This new investment enables us to continue our development roadmap, scale up our manufacturing capabilities, and invest in new avenues for innovation in T cell medicine.”
ArsenalBio’s robust pipeline includes potential therapies in development for ovarian, kidney, and prostate cancers, as well as other solid tumors being co-developed through a collaboration with Bristol-Myers Squibb Company. The fundraising follows ArsenalBio’s recent entry into clinic with its second T cell product candidate, AB-2100, being studied in a Phase 1/2 clinical trial for clear-cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC). The candidate has been granted Fast Track designation by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
