On April 22, 2019 Poseida Therapeutics Inc., a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company leveraging proprietary non-viral gene engineering technologies to create life-saving therapeutics, reported closing of a Series C financing round, raising $142 million led by a $75 million equity investment from Novartis Pharma AG, and joined by several new investors including Aisling Capital Management, Pentwater Capital Management, Perceptive Advisors as well as additional undisclosed institutional investors (Press release, Poseida Therapeutics, APR 22, 2019, View Source [SID1234536252]). Current investors Malin Corporation plc., Longitude Capital, Vivo Capital and Boxer Capital, LLC also participated in the financing.

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"We welcome the support and investment from Novartis, a leader in the cell and gene therapy field," said Eric Ostertag M.D., Ph.D., chief executive officer of Poseida. "They are joined by an impressive group of new investors whose commitment enables us to accelerate the pursuit of our bold vision to create gene therapy product candidates that could result in single-treatment cures for numerous oncologic indications and orphan genetic diseases, with an initial focus on chimeric antigen receptor T cell (CAR-T) therapies."

The company’s CAR-T product candidates are manufactured with Poseida’s non-viral piggyBac DNA Modification System, resulting in a high percentage of stem cell memory T cells (TSCM). Tscm cells are the only T cell that is self-renewing and long-lived, potentially resulting in product candidates that are more efficacious, less toxic and more durable. Poseida is currently developing the following CAR-T product candidates:

P-BCMA-101 is an autologous CAR-T therapy for the treatment of relapsed/refractory multiple myeloma, currently enrolling patients for a Phase 2 registrational trial with initial dosing expected in the first half of 2019.

P-PSMA-101 is an autologous CAR-T product candidate targeting PSMA-specific cancer cells in castrate resistant prostate cancer, with filing of an IND anticipated in the second half of 2019.

P-BCMA-ALLO1 is an allogeneic, or universal donor, CAR-T product candidate, manufactured using Poseida’s proprietary Cas-CLOVER site specific gene editing system and is being developed as a treatment for relapsed/refractory multiple myeloma, with an IND filing anticipated by late 2019 or early 2020.

P-MUC1C-101 is an autologous CAR-T product candidate in late-stage preclinical development for numerous solid tumor indications, including ovarian, breast, lung, colorectal, pancreatic and renal cancers, with filing of an IND anticipated in 2020.

Poseida plans to broadly advance its current CAR-T programs and emerging pipeline programs, including gene therapies for orphan genetic diseases.