Garuda Therapeutics brought in $62 million via a Series B to take its off-the-shelf cell therapies into the clinic next year.
The Boston-area biotech wants to rid the need for blood stem cell transplants and instead give patients self-renewing blood stem cells. The proceeds, which add to a $72 million Series A from September 2021, will bankroll two lead programs in hematological and oncology indications, Garuda said Tuesday morning.
Northpond Ventures, OrbiMed, Cormorant, Aisling Capital, Mass General Brigham Ventures and other “elite investors and individuals” are backing the biotech, which boldly claims it can go after 120 diseases, going so far as to introduce the C-word (“cure”) into the conversation.
Aside from hematology and oncologic disorders, Garuda’s new cash heap will also support HLA-matched pluripotent stem cells, which the startup says could expand the eligibility of patients and broaden access to blood and cell therapies.
In a statement, CEO and co-founder Dhvanit Shah said the goal is to best the existing treatments by improving consistency, scalability, durability, availability of healthy donors and affordability.
The biotech has a “bank” of pluripotent stem cells in its library.
At the time of the 2021 Series A, Shah told
Endpoints News
: “I’m done with people lining up to be a donor. We can do the job once in a lifetime and no one ever has to look back.”
Garuda beefed up its C-suite last year with the hires of technology chief
David DiGiusto
(previously CTO at biomanufacturer National Resilience),
Roger Sawhney
as CFO (after the same role at mRNA biotech Omega Therapeutics) and James Desiderio as chief regulatory officer after an SVP stint at Acceleron.
In conjunction with the financing, Cormorant managing director
Raymond Kelleher
joined the board, which also includes Shah, OrbiMed’s Carl Gordon, Aisling’s Eric Aguiar, Northpond’s Daniel Janse, Decibel Therapeutics CEO Laurence Reid and Resilience CEO
Rahul Singhvi
.