RTW Venture Fund, alongside other investment vehicles managed by its investment manager, co-led participation in Oricell Therapeutics’ $45m Series B-1 financing round together with Qatar Investment Authority, with participation from existing investors, including Qiming Venture Partners and C&D Emerging Industry Equity Investment.
Oricell, which was founded in 2015, is a China-based innovative pharmaceutical company committed to the development of tumour cellular immunotherapeutics. The proceeds from this financing round will primarily be used to support Oricell’s core product clinical development in the U.S., specifically OriCAR-017, a GPRC5D CAR-T therapeutic that treats relapsed and refractory multiple myeloma (RRMM), which is currently at the Investigational New Drug (IND) enabling stage in both the US and China. Oricell has applied for over 100 invention patents, with 10 already granted. Oricell raised over $120m in series B financing in July 2022.
Oricell Therapeutics’ mission is to develop affordable drugs for unmet clinical needs worldwide. It has built several proprietary technology platforms based on tumor cell immunotherapy. Oricell Therapeutics has made several achievements to overcome challenges to treat solid tumors including among others antibody engineering construction technology, tumor immune microenvironment regulation, T cell infiltration and killing ability.
Oricell’s first key product Ori-C101 debuted at the 2021 American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) annual meeting. Ori-C101 received IND clearance from National Medical Products Administration (the Chinese equivalent of the FDA) in September 2022. At 2022 ASCO annual meeting and European Hematology Association 2022 congress, Oricell presented the clinical research data of its proprietary CAR-T cell therapy targeting GPRC5D (OriCAR-017) for the treatment of Relapsed/Refractory Multiple Myeloma. The oral presentation was very well received; subsequently, the product was granted an orphan drug designation by US FDA. Its follow-up data was published in Lancet Haematology on January 31 2023.
RTW : RTW funds Oricell Therapeutics