Bellicum Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a Houston, Texas-based biotechnology company focused on developing effective cellular immunotherapies, completed a $55M Series C financing.
The round brought the total capital raised since inception to $107m.
Backers included eleven new investors including funds managed by RA Capital Management, LLC, Perceptive Advisors, LLC, Jennison Associates LLC, Sabby Capital, Ridgeback Capital Management, venBio Select, Redmile Group, LLC, AJU IB Investment, etc., and current investors AVG Ventures and Remeditex Ventures.
The company intends to use the funds to expand the clinical evaluation of its stem cell transplant, chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cell and cancer vaccine product candidates in a variety of blood and solid tumor cancers, and in nonmalignant genetic diseases.
Led by CEO Tom Farrell, Bellicum is developing cell therapies to treat cancers and other chronic and life-threatening diseases. Its proprietary cell-based therapies incorporate either the CaspaCIDe® self-destruct switch to enable the elimination of cell treatments that become toxic, or the DeCIDe® activation switch for controlled activation of dendritic cells to improve efficacy and safety. Cells engineered with either CaspaCIDe or DeCIDe are activated via infusion with the small molecule drug AP1903.
FinSMEs
27/08/2014