Fungal biosphere specialist Lifemine Therapeutics Inc. has struck a goldmine through a $175 million series C financing and an R&D collaboration allowing Glaxosmithkline plc (GSK) to use the company's platform to identify small-molecule leads.
The tides have turned for med-tech financings as private companies are now raising the largest proportion of money. In the early months of 2021, 2020 and 2019, public companies took the greatest share. However, amounts raised overall are down by 50% over the same period of 2021 and the number of transactions has fallen 17%.
In its drive to rewrite the rules of the tumor microenvironment so it can capture of the holy grail of successfully battling solid tumors by using T cells, Affini-T Therapeutics Inc. has completed an oversubscribed $175 million. The focus is to develop multiple oncogene driver programs for treating solid tumors such as those with mutated KRAS variants into the clinic, pursue complementary technology licenses to strengthen its cell therapy platform and to optimize its discovery engine.
Spotlight Therapeutics Inc., a company developing cell-targeted in vivo CRISPR gene editing biologics, has raised $36.5 million in series B financing to support advancement of its first-in-class immuno-oncology program and further applications of its in-house technology platform. The financing round was co-led by new investors GordonMD Global Investments and Epiq Capital Group, with participation from Magnetic Ventures, as well as existing investors GV, Emerson Collective and others.