Appia Bio appears with $52m series A

Appia Bio, a US-based cancer therapy developer spun out of University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), came out of stealth yesterday with $52m in series A capital led by 8VC.
Two Sigma Ventures, Sherpa Healthcare Partners and Freeflow Ventures also contributed to the round, as did unnamed others. Sherpa and Freeflow had supplied an undisclosed amount of seed capital at an unspecified date.
Founded in 2020, Appia Bio is working on off-the-shelf allogeneic cell therapies to target a wide range of cancer indications. It is based on research led by Lili Yang, associate professor of microbiology, immunology and molecular genetics at UCLA.
The spinout’s co-founders also include David Baltimore, president emeritus and distinguished professor of biology at California Institute of Technology and a Nobel laureate, and Pin Wang, professor of chemical engineering and materials science and biomedical engineering at University of Southern California.
JJ Kang, a former partner at Column Group, is also a co-founder and serves as chief executive, while co-founder Edmund Kim, previously with Kite Pharma, is the chief operating officer, and Jeff Wiezorek, also previously with Kite Pharma, is the chief medical officer.
The money will allow the spinout to advance its pipeline into the clinic.
Francisco Gimenez, partner, and David Moskowitz, principal, at 8VC, will join the board of directors. Baltimore has been elected chairman.
In conjunction with the series A round, Appia Bio also established a scientific advisory board. Members include Baltimore, as well as Mitchell Kronenberg, president and chief scientific officer at La Jolla Institute for Immunology; Antoni Ribas, professor of medicine at UCLA; and Margo Roberts, former chief scientific officer of Kite Pharma and Lyell Immunopharma.