Westlake Village BioPartners’ first investment, a T-Cell therapy startup called Tmunity Therapeutics, raised $75 million in Series B financing, the company has announced. The Philadelphia biotech company is the second of Westlake Bio’s investments to announce big financings in the last couple of weeks, with San Francisco-based immune cell therapy startup ArsenalBio clocking in $85 million for its Series A round. Tmunity, in the announcement last week, said it will use the proceeds to fund ongoing and planned research; clinical development of product candidates; continued build-out of the company’s proprietary, vertically-integrated viral vector and cell therapy product manufacturing; working capital and other general purposes. The company has raised $231 million since its inception. “We are fortunate to be funded by impressive investors who share our commitment to patients and our vision to dramatically change the way cancer is treated,” said Dr. Usman “Oz” Azam, chief executive of Tmunity. “We see ourselves leading the innovation of the future of oncology treatment by uniting our foundational competences in cell therapy with expertise in building new constructs, translating them and getting them into the clinic.”
