Carma Therapeutics Inc., a Philadelphia, PA-based biotechnology company developing cellular immunotherapies, closed an initial financing of undisclosed amount.
The round was co-led by AbbVie Ventures and HealthCap with participation from Grazia Equity and IP Group Inc.
The company intends to use the funds to advance the development of its first product, CARMA-0508, an adoptive cellular immunotherapy using chimeric antigen receptor macrophages (CARMA) for the treatment of metastatic solid tumors.
Co-founded by Saar Gill, MD, PhD, assistant professor of Hematology Oncology in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, and Michael Klichinsky, PharmD, a PhD candidate in the Department of Systems Pharmacology and Translational Therapeutics at the University of Pennsylvania, Carma Therapeutics is building a pipeline of cancer programs using its proprietary CARMA platform, combining chimeric antigen receptor targeting with macrophages to tackle solid tumors.
Led by Executive Chairman Bruce Peacock, a veteran of Philadelphia biotech successes Centocor and Cephalon, the company is built upon innovative technology from the Center for Cellular Immunotherapies at the University of Pennsylvania, and was spun out from the laboratory of Gill.
Carma is now looking to expand the team with the recruitment of a CEO as its top priority.
FinSMEs
12/06/2017