Biotech startup Immuneel Therapeutics raised $15 million in Series A round of funding led by Eight Roads Ventures and others

• ByStartupStory     |    June 22, 2022

Immuneel Therapeutics, a biotech business with offices in Bengaluru, has announced that it has raised $15 million in a Series A fundraising round. Existing investors Eight Roads Ventures, True North Fund VI LLP, and F-Prime Capital co-led the round. In the round, there were more investors. The funding obtained will aid in expanding both its development pipeline and scalability.

Immuneel Therapeutics was founded in 2019 by Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, the founder and CEO of Biocon, Dr Siddhartha Mukherjee, an oncologist and author based in the US, and Dr Kush Parmar, the founder of Boston-based 5AM Ventures, provides cell and gene therapy for the treatment of cancer at reasonable costs in India.

The firm also said that patient dosing has begun at Bengaluru’s Narayana Hrudyalaya’s phase II trials of its Chimeric Antigen Receptor T-cell Therapy (CAR-T) to treat blood cancer, known as IMAGINE. 24 cancer patients, including adults and children, will participate in the experiment, supported by Immuneel.

“This milestone is important for accelerating the development of an ecosystem that will make cell treatments available to patients in India in accordance with international standards at competitive prices. Worldwide, personalised cell treatments are still in their infancy, and we have a chance to stand apart through collaborations and cutting-edge research,” stated Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, co-founder and director of Immuneel Therapeutics.

The firm holds exclusive rights from Spain’s Hospital Clnic de Barcelona and Institut d’Investigacions Biomèdiques August Pi I Sunyer to produce and market the CAR-T cell treatment, which is now being tested in India.

According to Dr Devi Shetty, chairman of Narayana Health, “CAR-T cell therapy in the US started a decade ago and has proved to be beneficial for patients who relapse after leukaemia or lymphoma treatment, despite its cost which is above the means of most people, including Indians.”

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