CARISMA Therapeutics Completes Series B Financing Totaling $59 Million

On March 1, 2021 CARISMA Therapeutics Inc., a biopharmaceutical company focused on discovering and developing innovative immunotherapies, reported 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 (Press release, Carisma Therapeutics, MAR 1, 2021, View Source [SID1234575878]).

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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.

"We are pleased to receive additional support from one of our founding investors, IP Group, Inc., as well as Penn Medicine, and new participant 4BIO Capital, a fund committed to solely investing in advanced therapies," said Steven Kelly, President and Chief Executive Officer at CARISMA Therapeutics. "With our lead candidate, CT-0508, now officially in Phase I clinical trials, this additional funding puts CARISMA in an even stronger position in the field of immunotherapy as we advance our mission of evaluating the potential of engineered macrophages."

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 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.