Calimmune Inc., a Tucson, Arizona-based clinical-stage gene therapy company, completed a $15m Series B financing round.
The led was by a large pharmaceutical company with participation from Alexandria Venture Investments and existing investors RA Capital Healthcare Fund LP and Translational Accelerator LLC.
The company will use the funds to progress its ongoing HIV/AIDS clinical trials, advanced technology research programs and general corporate operations.
Led by Louis Breton, chief executive officer, Calimmune develops Cal-1, a gene-based therapy engineered to control HIV infection and to protect individuals with HIV from progressing to AIDS.
Cal-1 is designed to reduce production of CCR5, a protein on the surface of white blood cells that plays a critical role in enabling HIV to infect cells. It also has a second mechanism aimed at preventing viral fusion, the process by which the virus enters the cell.
The therapy is currently being evaluated in Phase I/II studies.
The company has labs and branch offices in Pasadena, California and Sydney, Australia.
FinSMEs
27/05/2015