– Obsidian Therapeutics, Inc. is a Cambridge, Mass.-based biotechnology company pioneering engineered cell and gene therapies.
– The company closed a $115m Series B financing.
– The round was led by The Column Group Crossover Fund (TCGX) with participation from RA Capital Management, Surveyor Capital (a Citadel company), Cowen Healthcare Investments, Deep Track Capital, Logos Capital, Pivotal BioVenture Partners, Samsara BioCapital, and Soleus Capital, and existing investors Atlas Venture, Vertex Ventures HC, Amgen Ventures, and Bristol Myers Squibb.
– Proceeds from the financing will be used to drive Obsidian’s lead tumor infiltrating lymphocyte (TIL) program, cytoTIL15, into the clinic and to first clinical data for the treatment of metastatic melanoma. In addition, the company plans to rapidly expand cytoTIL15 into multiple other solid tumor types and to advance its commercial manufacturing build.

– HilleVax, Inc. (HilleVax), a biopharmaceutical company focused on the development and commercialization of novel vaccine candidates, announced the close of a $135 million crossover financing led by Frazier Healthcare Partners and joined by RA Capital Management, Deerfield Management Company, Abingworth, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Perceptive Advisors, Catalys Pacific, Samsara BioCapital, BVF Partners, Qiming Venture Partners USA, Greenspring Associates, Richard King Mellon Foundation, and Sahsen Ventures.
– The proceeds of this financing support the further clinical development of HilleVax’s virus-like particle (VLP) based vaccine candidate, HIL-214, for the prevention of moderate-to-severe acute gastroenteritis caused by norovirus infection.

– Neurogastrx, a privately held specialty pharmaceutical company developing transformative therapies for gastrointestinal (GI) disorders, announced the successful completion of a $60m Series B crossover round led by Vivo Capital.
– Other new investors participating in the Series B round include RTW Investments, Samsara BioCapital and Marshall Wace, joining 5AM Ventures, venBio and OrbiMed Advisors.
– Proceeds from the financing will be used to advance the company’s pipeline of GI therapies for serious conditions that impact millions of people yet are not effectively treated.

– Prime Medicine is a Cambridge MA-based biotechnology company developing gene editing technology.
– The company raised $115M in Series A funding and $200M in Series B funding.
– The Series A round was led by ARCH Venture Partners with participation from F-Prime Capital, GV, and Newpath Partners.
– The Series B included all Series A investors, plus Casdin Capital with participation from Cormorant Asset Management, Moore Strategic Ventures, Public Sector Pension Investment Board, Redmile Group and Samsara BioCapital.

– RayzeBio, Inc. announced a $108m Series C financing led by Venrock Healthcare Capital Partners alongside new investors Perceptive Advisors, Vivo Capital, Acuta Capital Partners, Deerfield Management, and TCG X.
– Also participating were all of Rayze’s existing investors: venBio Partners, Versant Ventures, Samsara BioCapital, Redmile Group, Viking Global Investors, Cormorant Asset Management, OrbiMed, LifeSci Venture Partners, Logos Capital, Alexandria Venture Investments, and others.
– The targeted radiopharmaceuticals field represents a highly clinically validated modality that, until recently, has been underappreciated.
– With over $258m of capital raised since the company first debuted in the second half of 2020, RayzeBio has rapidly expanded its team, infrastructure, capabilities, and pipeline.

– Synthekine closed an oversubscribed $107.5m Series B financing.
– The round was co-led by Deerfield Management and Janus Henderson Investors, with participation from RA Capital Management, Rock Springs Capital, Omega Funds, TCG X, Lilly Asia Ventures, and an undisclosed leading healthcare investor.
– Existing investors The Column Group, Samsara BioCapital, Canaan Partners, and Emerson Collective also participated in the round.
– Synthekine is advancing cytokine science and creating optimized therapeutics in this important space.
– Synthekine expects to move both programs into clinical investigation within the next year, with proceeds from the financing supporting clinical proof-of-concept data.

– NiKang Therapeutics Inc. announced the completion of an oversubscribed $200m series C financing led by Cormorant Asset Management, HBM Healthcare Investments and Octagon Capital Advisors with participations from a premier syndicate of funds including new investors EcoR1 Capital, Perceptive Advisors, Wellington Management, Ally Bridge Group, Pavilion Capital, funds and accounts managed by BlackRock, RA Capital Management, Surveyor Capital (a Citadel company), Samsara BioCapital, PFM Health Sciences, Invus, Janus Henderson Investors and Logos Capital.
– All existing investors including CBC Group, RTW Investments, LP, Lilly Asia Ventures, Matrix Partners China, and Casdin Capital participated in the financing.

– Arcellx Raises $115M in Series C Financing.
– The round was co-led by Samsara BioCapital and CAM Capital, joined by new investors Adage, Asymmetry, CaaS Capital, Cambrian Bio, Sixty Degree, Soleus Capital, Surveyor Capital (a Citadel company), Suvretta, and Terra Magnum Capital Partners.
– The new investment will be used to develop CART-ddBCMA and initiate clinical trials evaluating ACLX-001 and ACLX-002 in multiple myeloma (MM) and acute myelogenous leukemia (AML) respectively.

– Graphite Bio, a next-generation gene editing company focused on therapies that harness targeted gene integration to treat or cure serious diseases, today announced the close of an oversubscribed $150 million Series B financing.
– The company will use the funds to expand and advance into the clinic its pipeline of investigational high efficiency, targeted gene integration therapies with curative potential for serious diseases.
– RA Capital Management and Rock Springs Capital led the financing with significant participation from new investors Cormorant Asset Management, Deerfield Management Company, Federated Hermes Kaufmann Funds, Fidelity Management & Research Company, Janus Henderson Investors, Logos Capital, OrbiMed, Perceptive Advisors, Surveyor Capital (a Citadel company), and Venrock Healthcare Capital Partners, joining existing investor Samsara BioCapital and founding investor Versant Ventures.

– ElevateBio is a Cambridge, Mass.-based cell and gene therapy technology company focused on advancing new cell and gene therapies.
– Company raised $525m in Series C funding.
– The round was led by Matrix Capital Management with participation from new investors SoftBank Vision Fund 2 and Fidelity Management and Research Company and existing investors MPM Capital, F2 Ventures, Redmile Group, EcoR1 Capital, Samsara BioCapital, The Invus Group, Emerson Collective, Surveyor Capital (A Citadel company), EDBI, and Vertex Ventures, iTochu, and a large insurance company.

– Covid Apollo announces its investment in Rhinostics, an early-stage company that provides a novel solution of enabling comfortable sample collection, rapid accessioning, and automated cap removal that can be linked to high throughput Covid-19 assays to remove wasted time, headcount and costs from laboratory workflows.
– The Covid Apollo Project brings together expertise and capital to find and help scale the most promising Covid-19 diagnostic opportunities.
– Originally funded under the leadership of RA Capital Management, the Project includes Redmile Group, Samsara BioCapital, Perceptive Advisors, and Bain Capital.
– Covid Apollo is focused on finding and accelerating the most promising COVID testing solutions to rebuild testing paradigms to address the unique challenges that the pandemic has presented.

– OnKure, Inc. raised $55m in a Series B financing.
– Proceeds will be used to advance the Company’s next generation histone deacetylase (HDAC) inhibitors further into clinical development and fund a growing pipeline of earlier stage molecules.
– The financing was led by Acorn Bioventures with participation from additional new investors Cormorant Asset Management, Surveyor Capital (a Citadel company), Samsara BioCapital, Perceptive Advisors and funds and accounts managed by BlackRock.
– In connection with the financing, Isaac Manke, Ph.D., Partner at Acorn Bioventures, and Andrew Phillips, Ph.D., Managing Director at Cormorant Asset Management, will join the OnKure board of directors.

– eGenesis from Cambridge, Mass. develops human-compatible organs, tissues, and cells.
– The company raised $125m in Series C funding.
– Backers included Farallon Capital Management, Polaris Partners, HBM Healthcare Investments, Invus, Samsara BioCapital, LifeSci Venture Partners, Irving Investors, Catalio Capital Management, SymBiosis, Altium Capital, Monashee Investment Management, and Osage University Partners and existing investors Leaps by Bayer, Fresenius Medical Care Ventures, ARCH Venture Partners, Wellington Partners, Khosla Ventures, and Alta Partners.

– Notch Therapeutics is a Vancouver, BC-based biotechnology company developing renewable, induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC)-derived cell therapies for cancer.
– Company closed an U.S. $85m Series A financing.
– The round was led by an exclusively healthcare-focused investment fund with participation from existing investors Allogene Therapeutics, Inc., Lumira Ventures, and CCRM Enterprises Holdings Ltd., an affiliate of Centre for Commercialization of Regenerative Medicine (CCRM); along with new investors EcoR1 Capital, Casdin Capital, Samsara BioCapital, and Amplitude Ventures.

– Pipeline Therapeutics completed an $80m Series C financing round.
– The round was led by a healthcare-focused new investor, with participation by other new investors including Perceptive Advisors, Franklin Templeton, Casdin Capital, Samsara BioCapital, Suvretta Capital, Red Tree Venture Capital, and an undisclosed leading global investment fund.
– All of the company’s existing shareholders, including founding investor Versant Ventures, Sectoral Asset Management and Cleva Pharma (a Brace Pharma affiliate), participated in the round.
– Pipeline Therapeutics plans to use the proceeds to advance its development candidates PIPE-505, in patients with sensorineural hearing loss, and PIPE-307, in patients with multiple sclerosis. Proceeds will also be used to advance additional therapeutic candidates and for general corporate purposes.