‘Impressive roster of participants’ brings $42m to PureTech affiliate

BPI Staff

February 14, 2019

1 Min Read
‘Impressive roster of participants’ brings $42m to PureTech affiliate

Vor Biopharma, founded by PureTech, has raised $42 million to support its hematopoietic stem cell (HSC)-based candidate through Series A financing round.

Vor Biopharma, co-founded by biopharma firm PureTech, will use the $42 million (€37 million) to advance its lead HSC-based preclinical candidate for the treatment of acute myeloid leukemia (AML) and to further build its pipeline to treat hematologic malignancies.

According to Jefferies equity analyst Peter Welford, the Series A financing round included an “impressive roster of participants,’ led by 5AM Ventures and RA Capital Management, with participation from Johnson & Johnson Innovation, Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research (NIBR), Osage University Partners, Columbia University, and PureTech Health.

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“This notable fundraising, backed by impressive third party investors, underscores the potential of Vor’s novel technology, in our view, potentially expanding use of immunotherapies for blood cancers,” Welford wrote in a note.

Vor’s engineered HSC platform aims to expand the reach of targeted immunotherapies to a broad range of patient populations and hematological malignancies. The firm says this improved tolerability could expand the use of modalities such as CAR-T, antibody-drug conjugates and bispecific antibodies, beyond B-cell malignancies.

“The need for new therapies for hematologic malignancies is dire. I am gratified that this discovery from my lab continues to advance towards the clinic. This new platform may enable more patients to benefit from the life-saving potential of targeted immunotherapies,” said Siddhartha Mukherjee, Vor co-founder and associate professor of Medicine at Columbia University.

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