Immunitas Therapeutics, a Boston, MA-based single cell genomics-based drug discovery company, raised $39m in Series A financing.
The round was led by Leaps by Bayer and Novartis Venture Fund and joined by additional investors including Evotec, M Ventures, Alexandria Venture Investments, and other institutional investors.
The company plans to use this funding to advance its first programs, monoclonal antibody therapeutics with single agent activity in preclinical models of oncology, to clinical studies.
Founded by Longwood Fund, Immunitas Therapeutics employs a single cell genomics platform to dissect the biology of immune cells in human tumors, thereby advancing discoveries directly from the bench into meaningful clinical improvements.
The team innovates around each step of the drug development process, first identifying novel targets, then designing therapeutic strategies, and developing key biomarkers to guide the selection of patients who may benefit from new drugs. .
The scientific founders of Immunitas are:
– Kai Wucherpfennig M.D. Ph.D., Professor and Chair of the Department of Cancer Immunology and Virology at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School,
– Mario Suvà M.D., Ph.D., an Associate Professor in the Department of Pathology at Massachusetts General Hospital and at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, and
– Dane Wittrup, Ph.D., the Carbon P. Dubbs Professor of Chemical Engineering and Biological Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
– Lea Hachigian, Ph.D., co-founder, director and President of Immunitas Therapeutics.
The company also announced key senior management appointments as well as the Board of Directors.
Dr. Lea Hachigian is co-founder, director and President of Immunitas as well as a Principal at Longwood Fund. She is also a co-founder and director of TScan Therapeutics.
Tarek Samad, Ph.D. is the Chief Scientific Officer at Immunitas Therapeutics. He has over two decades of experience in academia and industry leading small molecule and antibody biologic programs into the clinic.
Amanda Wagner joins the company as Vice President of Strategy and Operations with over ten years of biotech experience in similar roles.
The Board of Directors includes Dr. Laura Brass, Dr. Jürgen Eckhardt, Dr. Lea Hachigian, Dr. Lucio Iannone, Dr. Christoph Westphal, and Dr. Vincent Xiang.
FinSMEs
21/11/2019