Carisma Therapeutics closed its Series B with $59M and a focus on its pipeline and discovery programs

Carisma Therapeutics, a biotech company focused on the development of immunotherapeutics and the treatment of solid tumors, announced Monday that it has closed a $59 million Series B round.

It follows a $60 million Series A in the summer of 2019, and an earlier announcement of some Series B funding early this year. It brings the company’s total funding to $121 million. This latest investment comes from IP Group, Inc., Penn Medicine and 4BIO Capital.

They join the initial Series B investor syndicate by Symbiosis II, Solasta Ventures, Livzon Pharmaceutical Group, AbbVie Ventures, HealthCap, Wellington Partners, TPG Biotech, Agent Capital and MRL Ventures Fund, Carisma said in the announcement.

The company develops cellular therapies aimed at fighting solid tumors, and this fresh funding will be used to advance its current pipeline and discovery programs. This includes its Phase 1 clinical trials of CT-0508, which it describes as “an anti-human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2) targeted chimeric antigen receptor macrophage (CAR-M).”

Carisma recently initiated trial enrollment and patient screening for its first-in-human study of CT-0508 at the University of Pennsylvania and the University of North Carolina. The funding will also allow Carisma to continue developing its proprietary engineered-macrophage platform, continue pipeline expansion in cancer indications and allow for the platform to apply to disease areas outside of cancer, it said.

“With our lead candidate, CT-0508, now officially in Phase I clinical trials, this additional funding puts Carisma in an even stronger position in the field of immunotherapy as we advance our mission of evaluating the potential of engineered macrophages,” said Steven Kelly, president and CEO.

The company was the first to be based in the BioLabs@CIC shortly after it opened in December 2018 after previously working out of the Princeton BioLabs. The company currently has 37 team members, and expects about 30% personnel growth this year, a company spokesperson said. Check out its current open roles.