NUI Maynooth spinout Avectas has added $20m to its coffers to develop cancer treatments.
Avectas, an Ireland-based cell engineering platform developer spun out of National University of Ireland (NUI) Maynooth, has received $20m in a funding round led by private investor Séamus Mulligan, according to the Irish Times.
Founded in 2012 as Profector Life Sciences, Avectas has built a cell engineering platform called Solupore that enables drug developers to create therapeutic cells by injecting advanced molecules including proteins or messenger RNA into cellular subtypes such as immune system T-cells.
The company raised $10m in a round also led by Mulligan in 2019. It had previously secured $2.4m through a collaboration deal with therapeutics developer Adapt Pharma, now a subsidiary of speciality biopharmaceuticals firm Emergent BioSolutions, in 2015.
Adapt Pharma subsequently provided $1.8m of a $1.9m convertible debt round in 2018 that was converted to equity months later, when it also exchanged $4.2m in notes from a 2017 round. Adapt owned a majority stake in Avectas as of 2018.
